Something Worth Having
by MrsTater
Summary: When Mary moves to London to escape painful memories of Matthew at Downton, she must face more than grief as former suitors and her estranged sister come back into her life.
1. Gloves Off

_**A/N: **__Written for Rose, who requested a bit of post-S3 Mary/Richard without a great deal of angst. I think I've managed to pull that off—though I'm also not sure I'll be able to leave this at "a bit." This definitely feels like the start of something more…what do you guys think? ;) Don't worry, I haven't forgotten about __**A Lady In Paris**__—I'm just still planning what happens next. ;)_

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**_Spring, 1922_**

**1. Gloves Off**

The rap of the knocker on the front door of Grantham House in London drew Isobel Crawley's gaze from her lap, where her infant grandson gummed away at his first morsel of bread and butter.

"I wonder who that could be?"

She swiveled in her wing backed chair to peer out the bay window overlooking the street, but her crinkled forehead indicated she couldn't make out who stood on the doorstep. Mary had a better vantage point from the sofa, but she made no move to look and sipped her tea as low muffled male tones rumbled through the walls from the entry hall.

"Evelyn Napier, I should imagine," she replied, lowering her cup onto the saucer resting on her knee, the white of the china stark against her black skirt. "He phoned yesterday to say he might drop in some afternoon this week. Though I thought he said he wouldn't be in town for a few days."

"Perhaps he's had a change of plans," Isobel said. "I only met him the once at Downton. He seemed a very pleasant young man. He's never married?"

"He was nearly engaged, before the war."

Isobel smiled, stiffly, and returned her attention to the baby, who had begun to fuss and wriggle in her lap toward the side table where her plate held the enticing buttered bread. Did it upset her, Mary wondered, for her daughter-in-law to receive a call from a former suitor? She hadn't considered that when she'd happily told Evelyn she'd be pleased to receive him. Surely Isobel couldn't think she'd consider rekindling an old flame so soon? They'd scarcely buried Matthew seven months ago.

Not that she'd ever described Evelyn as a _flame_. They hadn't had so much as a spark between them, and Evelyn knew it. She opened her mouth to explain, but before she could utter a word, Molesley, who'd come with them to serve as butler in Grantham House, opened the drawing room door.

"Sir Richard Carlisle to see you, Lady Mary."

She nearly dropped her teacup. Isobel looked as if she might drop the baby—and she didn't even know the whole sordid tale of the engagement, what had begun it or what brought it to an end, Mary having begged Matthew not to tell. Not after Richard left the way he did, and said what he did, and she felt so awfully about her part in making things so terribly wrong between them. Her stomach twisted now with guilt, so fresh was the memory of that early morning two years ago, and she plucked the baby from her mother-in-law's arms to prevent wringing her hands, too. She half-expected to see the darkening bruise beneath Richard's eye as he strode into the room, dressed in greatcoat and scarf and carrying his trilby almost exactly as he had then.

Of course she did not. And as further proof that time had passed, she noticed that his hair was a little thinner on top, a little greyer at the temples—though these subtle changes only made him look more distinguished rather than advanced in age.

"Sir Richard," she and Isobel greeted in unison, and he shook their hands in turn.

"Mrs Crawley. Lady Mary. And this must be the future Earl of Grantham. A big title for a little boy," Richard added, reaching out as if to shake the baby's pudgy hand as well; his eyes widened at the pincer grasp that closed around his long index finger.

"Well, we call him Georgie," Isobel said, beaming.

"Yes I received the birth announcement."

Richard looked at Mary as he spoke. She felt Isobel's eyes on her, too, understandably perplexed; Mary wasn't sure even she understood her own reasons for writing to Richard about the birth of her son. Only that it seemed right, somehow, after he'd sent condolences for Sybil.

He'd offered none for Matthew, however. _I am a great many things, but not a liar_, he rasped in her memory, though his resonant tones filled the small drawing room of the town house.

"George is not a family name, I think."

The remark was innocuous enough for Isobel, but Mary understood his tacit meaning: _they hadn't named him for his father._

"We didn't want him to live in anyone else's shadow," she replied.

They hadn't settled on what to call him before the baby came, though they had decided not to name their child for anyone. Mary had stuck by this mutual agreement with her husband even when her family believed she ought to call him Matthew.

"Indeed." Richard's eyebrows pulled together as he leaned in to study George. "I don't see that being an issue with regard to family resemblance, either. I don't see much of either parent in him."

"He looks like himself," Isobel said, a little defensively.

"I mean he's a handsome lad," Richard clarified.

"Thank you, Sir Richard. If you'll excuse me, I'll just take George upstairs for his nap."

Mary handed the baby off to his grandmother—George did not willingly release Richard's finger and let out a loud protest until Isobel popped another morsel of bread in his wide open mouth—then she and Richard seated themselves across the tea table from each other, he in the wing chair where Isobel had been sitting and Mary resuming her place on the sofa. It wasn't until she was handing him a cup of tea that she realised she hadn't had to think about pouring it the way he liked.

"Now Richard," she said, "_I_ think George is very handsome, even if he does look more like his Aunt Edith than he does like me." _Or Matthew._ "But I never knew you to flatter."

"Then rest assured it's without a trace of flattery that I say I knew you'd look feminine with one of the new French haircuts."

Mary held her teacup to her lips for a moment before she actually sipped; as she swallowed, Richard spoke.

"I'm curious whether you did it before or after your husband—"

"It was after."

He gave her a measured look. "I confess I'm rather surprised you'd go against his wishes when they seemed to be all that mattered to you for so long."

"He missed the birth of our son and then crashed his car an hour later. It was the least I could do to express how I felt."

Richard's eyebrows went up. "You're angry with him."

Who _wasn't_ she angry with? Matthew for dying, herself for being angry with him, her parents for not seeing that she was, Richard for making her admit to it.

"I did think it was rather discourteous of him to die that way after what he put you through during the war," he said, running the tip of his long index finger along the ridge of his trilby where it rested on the side table. At least Mary could take comfort in the fact that he didn't judge her for what she had revealed.

A _small_ comfort.

But enough for her to fix him with her level stare above her teacup. "Says the man who threatened me with ruin if I jilted him."

The lines of his jaw and brow seem to sharpen, and Mary remembered his face, so close to hers, his hands gripping her arms. She tensed at the edge of the sofa as he leaned forward and stretched one hand out toward her, but it was only to grab a sandwich from the tray.

"Admit it, Mary," he said, his face relaxed again as he sat back, crossing one leg over the other. "I treated you abominably, but I never had the power to hurt you the way the late Mr Crawley did."

It was as near as he'd come—or probably ever would come—to an apology. _Is that why you never published?_ she wanted to ask.

Instead she said, "Is that why you're here? Can't stop trying to prove you're better than Matthew?"

"Well I've never crashed a car."

Mary had seen the retort coming in the hard gleam of Richard's eyes, but she flinched anyway, not having braced for so low a blow.

She was equally unprepared for Richard to glance away, his chin jutting slightly, taught, his words equally so when he added in low tones, "I understand, the accident was the other driver's fault. Not Mr Crawley's."

"Is that what they put in the papers?" Mary asked hoarsely, and she too had to look away.

Mercifully, Richard gave her a moment to pretend she was looking out the window at the new Silver Ghost parked on the street as she sipped her tea, and waited until she turned back to pour another cup before he spoke again, this time in a tone more conversational than confrontational as he munched his sandwich.

"How are you finding your stay in town?" He shook his head, declining her offer of more tea; he sat at the edge of his chair, hunched slightly with his hands clasped between his knees. "You never seemed to care much for London life before."

"That was before I had to live in a small village following the sudden tragic death of my husband."

It seemed so silly, in that light, to think of the lengths to which she'd once gone to avoid being an object of pity. Did Richard think the same? She searched his face for some sign that he did, but his features had settled into a bland expression as his gaze drifted just over her shoulder, out the window.

"Your sister resides in London now, too, I believe?"

His eyes swung back to hers, the creases at the corners deepening in the shrewd expression she knew so well. _And there it was._

"But not here with you in Hanover Square."

"You know with whom and where better than I do," Mary said, relieved that her voice did not quaver and her teacup did not rattle against the saucer as she set it down. "Is it too much to hope that after keeping my little secret quiet you'll do the same for Edith? Or do you still want to punish my family?"

She had meant to shame him, even the slightest bit, but Richard merely dimpled as he placed his hands on the arms of his chair and pushed to his feet.

"Of course I do, but Lady Edith was the one of you who made an effort at civility." He retrieved his hat from the side table, but did not put it on. "I won't publish a word about her."

"Thank you." Mary reached out to take the hand he extended to her but pulled up short just shy of his fingertips. She had to take a look around her at the familiar drawing room interior of her family's London home to reassure herself she had not been transported back to Richard's Fleet Street office in 1917. "Do you expect me to marry you in return?"

Richard gave a puff of a laugh. "I won't even expect so much as dinner with you."

Mary accepted his handshake then—a brief firm squeeze—but when she felt his grip start to relax around her hand she tightened her grasp, seized by a sudden impulse.

"What if I _want_ to have dinner with you?"

She did, very much. For all this interview had been painful some of the time, and awkward for most of it, it had also been the most authentic she had felt in half a year. Richard had not treated her with kid gloves, but had trusted her not to crumble beneath the weight of truth. He always had given her that, she realised. _We're strong and sharp, and we can build something worth having, you and I. If you'll let us._

She didn't know what they could build out of this broken heap, but if there was anything to salvage, Richard would be able to see it.

His expression was a mask, but the tell-tale muscle beneath his cheekbone gave a tremor. "Well, then," he said, donning his hat, "that would be a first."


	2. Cocktail Party

_**A/N: The first chapter of this fic was posted as a one-shot entitled "Gloves Off" which, thanks to your enthusiastic response, has led to an outline of a full-length WIP that will, no doubt, be rendered completely AU by S4. I have, however, edited the name of Mary's son (Louis in the original one-shot) to reflect the new canon (and I realized I'd missed a prime opportunity to include Molesley, so I've made him the butler in the London house). I'm really excited about what's in store for Mary, Richard, and the supporting characters in this fic, and I hope you all enjoy. Thank you so much for encouraging me to make more of it, and especially to gilpin25 and malintzin for being my sounding boards over the past few weeks.**_

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**2. Cocktail Party**

"For a man who professed such a fondness for cocktails before they became fashionable," said Aunt Rosamund, gesturing to Mary with her martini glass, "Sir Richard does makes a habit of missing them. How many evenings at Downton did we delay going through to dinner because we were waiting for him to grace us with his presence?"

Her scornful smile faltered for a moment when she saw that Mary did not return it or appear to have any intention of making a reply. As she sipped her cocktail her lips curved upward again and this time she addressed Michael Gregson, who stood with them by the drinks cabinet, where Molesley almost giddily mixed cocktails. Not an altogether wise idea, Mary thought, after his shenanigans at the ghillies ball at Cousin Shrimpy's, but so far her watchful eye had not caught him tippling.

"It seemed impossible for him to catch a Friday afternoon train that wasn't late," Rosamund went on, "or not to get tied up with a Saturday or Sunday evening phone call. Long distance, of course."

"I see," Mr Gregson replied into his drink, red-faced and darting desperate eyes across the drawing room to Edith, but she was oblivious to her lover as she bounced her nephew on her lap.

"It's not yet eight," said Isobel, who sat next to Edith on the sofa.

Mary looked away from supervising Molesley and found that the mantel clock read so very nearly the hour as to consider Richard not punctual, if not precisely late; Georgie's smiles, apparently, made Isobel generous.

If only this were the case for Aunt Rosamund, who persisted in the face of Mr Gregson's evident embarrassment. "It would seem tardiness is a quality unique to Sir Richard and not particular to all newspaper men. Though I would have thought if any of you was to be chained to his desk it would be the editor, not the publisher."

Mr Gregson rocked slightly backward on his heels as he shrugged. "Well, Sir Richard isn't my publisher."

"Indeed. None of his publications is so respectable as _The Sketch_."

"Oh, but _The Capital Herald_-"

Mary did not catch the rest of Mr Gregson's reply as she took her martini and left him to Rosamund. He was her guest, but she felt no compulsion to rescue the man who had led her sister into disgrace; he could fend for himself. She'd invited her aunt to relieve the likely awkwardness of dining with her late husband's mother and a former fiancé, and Rosamund accepted because "i_t's certain to be great theatre."_ Though Mary had rolled her eyes at the prospect of being anyone's entertainment, she hadn't expected Rosamund to participate in the drama herself. Perhaps she ought to have, given her aunt's track record for insinuating herself into Mary's personal affairs.

"I don't mind Sir Richard being late," said Edith as Mary approached the sofa before the fire. "It gives me more time with this little darling before he's put to bed."

Includig Edith and her lover in the dinner party was Rosamund's idea, too. Although it seemed reasonable that having a fellow newspaper man _"to provide Sir Richard with some occupation besides giving you surly glares across the table_," Mary was not certain she was any more at ease about mending fences with Edith than about doing so with Richard.

For a person who had never done anything in her life that might be deemed spectacular, Edith's departure from Downton could only be described as such. Aside from shaming the family by taking up as a married man's mistress-a _newspaper _man's mistress, no less; Mary could not cast stones at sexual exploits, but she could at sheer stupidity-even worse was the timing of it. How _could _Edith hurt Papa this way, when the man he'd loved as dearly as any child of his body was scarcely dead and in the ground?

When Mary and Isobel removed to town after the New Year for a change of scenery, Papa expressly forbade them to have any contact with Edith. Isobel respected his wishes, though she of course disagreed with him. What Mary had not counted on was that Aunt Rosamund thought this approach was wrong, too. Giving Edith the silent treatment when she already suffered the middle child's lot of feeling overlooked by the family could hardly convince her to leave a man who so desperately wanted her, could it? Mary saw her point, along with the other one that Papa would likely be more incensed that the family's acquaintance with Richard Carlisle had been resumed, so they might as well have all the unsuitable dinner guests at once and be done with it.

All this Mary agreed with, yet as she watched Edith kiss and cuddle the baby while reciting _Georgie Porgie _to him in a soppy way Mary never imagined her sister capable of-their mother's daughter she apparently was, despite having inherited none of Mama's looks-her stomach knotted. Their parents were not the only members of the family hurt by Edith's love affair. Mary, too, felt abandoned by Edith, though at first the drama and scandal had been almost a welcome distraction from her grief. When all quieted and Mary was left in the Abbey, the solitary Crawley sister, she couldn't help but wonder whether Edith had planned it so, exacting her revenge at last for Mary wrecking her marriage plans to Anthony Strallan so many years ago, glorying in the death of the darling daughter's dreams. If she'd only been the sister Edith plaintively asked her to be after Sybil died, would she have been more likely to be the one Mary wanted now?

"Mary always says she sees you in Georgie," Isobel's voice interrupted the morose train of thought. "Now you're together, I must admit the resemblance is unmistakable."

"She said the same to me, and I also see it now," a deep, rasping voice joined in the conversation, and they all turned to see Richard stride through the drawing room door, carelessly handing off gloves and top hat to Ben the hall boy who scurried behind, the greatcoat already draped over his gangly arm. "Lady Edith does favour Lord Grantham and the Dowager Countess quite strongly. They must be pleased to see the looks passed down through another generation."

The dimples flashed in his cheeks with a mocking smile Mary knew well. But she also knew his other mannerisms; the way he slipped one hand into his trouser pocket as Molesley inquired what he'd like to drink, and his gaze wavered back to the baby, brows drawing together, suggested there was more behind his sharp words than a well-aimed jab at the family who had once humiliated him. What, she couldn't say, but it prompted her to p qluck George from Edith's lap and hold him tightly. The baby let out a wail of protest.

Meanwhile, Aunt Rosamund greeted Richard. "I didn't think we'd meet again."

"Lady Rosamund." Having drained the whisky sour he'd looked only too relieved for Molesley to bring, he looked himself again as he shook her hand. "What a pity your mother isn't with us tonight to hear you say so."

Aunt Rosamund, of course, had not witnessed Granny's parting words to Richard, but Mary had, and he looked over Rosamund's shoulder to her, pale eyebrows twitching slightly upward in expectation. Mary only drew a long breath and said that she'd ring for Nanny Philips to take the baby upstairs, and then they could go through to dinner.

"Oh don't bother with that," Edith protested as Mary reached for the bell. "I can take him up."

Mary reluctantly relinquished George to her sister, but could not allow Edith to show her up in front of Richard. Or Isobel. "I'll go with you," she said, and after his grandmother kissed the baby goodnight, they left her to see to their other guests.

Pausing in the drawing room doorway to glance back over her shoulder, Mary was relieved to see her mother-in-law shake Richard's hand with genuine warmth, and she had a flash of memory of the pair meeting and getting on quite well that first weekend Richard spent at Downton. Isobel, not saddled with her family's prejudices about the middle class rising through the upper ranks of society, had greeted him with enthusiasm then, too. More confident that this strange assortment of guests was not guaranteed to be a total disaster, as it surely would at Downton-as it had been in the past-Mary continued into the hall and upstairs.

As they climbed, however, Edith cast a more current light on the situation. "How does Cousin Isobel feel about you entertaining Matthew's former rival?"

Matthew never had a rival. Mary always knew that, as had everyone else, Edith included. But Mary considered for the first time that perhaps Isobel had not been privy to that knowledge.

"Matthew was engaged to somebody else, too," she said, but her voice did not sound as confident as she intended as an unexpected knot formed in her chest, choking her, as it had that night years ago when Edith spitefully told her Matthew was bringing his fiancée to Downton.

Strange how all Matthew's assurances…a marriage…a child…had not been enough to erase the pain of having believed the man who had spoiled her for all others preferred another woman, even for a time, to her.

_Not enough. _

The polished oak banister which had glided beneath Mary's palm now snagged her glove as she gripped it tighter.

She would never have enough of the life she'd wanted with Matthew.

"I am lady of this house in Papa's absence," she said, "and I may invite whomever I like to dine with me. Isobel knows that." In fact, her mother-in-law had little to say about the matter of Richard's call and the invitation Mary made him of dining with them. "And she quite agrees, we've kept too much to ourselves of late. She says it's good that I'm taking an interest in society again."

"Surely not the society of the man who once blackmailed you into marrying him!" Edith wheeled around at the top of the staircase, her voice echoing off the high ceiling above.

_But he never published_. Mary did not argue aloud with her sister as she halted on the step below, peering up at Edith for once in their lives. Richard had been humiliated-deservedly or not, it didn't matter-yet he had not taken revenge on her family. Surely that was the most telling thing about his character yet. In many respects, she had only glimpsed the real Richard Carlisle _after_ he had ceased to be a part of her life.

Though it would seem he had not really ceased to be, after all. _Why had she invited him tonight? Why had he called on her in the first place?_

"Mary?"

The sound of her name uttered hesitantly drew her out from her thoughts. Georgie looked down at her in some confusion, fussing sleepily, drool glistening on his barely existent chin, as Edith held him to herself almost as a shield.

"I _am _sorry that my petty jealousy all those years ago led to…this. If I'd known that horrid Bates woman would find out, I-"

"Still would have written to the Turkish Ambassador." Mary stepped around her on the landing to lead the way down the hall to the nursery. "Anyway it seems I was destined never to be happy, with or without your help."

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Aunt Rosamund's predictions proved correct, that the presence of other journalists kept conversation flowing at dinner as smoothly as the courses. Mary was only too happy to let the talk go on around her without having to participate herself, but by the time Molesley brought the dessert, Rosamund seemed to have grown tired of the discussion being dominated by only half their party, with Isobel's occasional interjections, and seized upon a new topic which interested her and which Mary could not ignore.

"Whatever became of Haxby Park, Sir Richard?" she asked, leaning around Mary to address the man seated to her right. "My brother hasn't complained about any vexing new neighbours, so I can only assume you haven't sold it."

Mary looked up from her marmalade pudding in alarm, just in time to notice an expression flicker briefly in the lines of his face as he took a bite that made her think they could do with the distraction of a salty pudding. He retained his composure, however, chewing slowly and washing it down with a long sip of port before making a reply.

"You assume rightly, Lady Rosamund. I'm sure Lord Grantham has complained about the difficulties of maintaining an ancient estate in the midst of this brave new world."

Though he spoke coolly, the dispassionate tones did not deceive Mary; she'd made the mistake of meeting his eye and saw the sharp glint as he dealt the words which were sharp enough to feel the insult even without a forceful delivery.

"And you were so confident you'd sell it at a profit," she countered, no longer feeling so sorry as she had the day he left Downton that he'd got stuck with a vulgar mansion and twelve thousand acres.

"I will." Richard added, his voice dropping in resentment along with his gaze into his wine glass. "Eventually." His eyes flicked up again, bright over the rim of his glass. "I've never been one to act in haste, with regard to my investments."

Their gaze held until Rosamund, at Mary's other side, muttered, "So much for avoiding surly glares."

Mary did not look at Richard, and therefore could not see his expression to read whether he'd overheard her aunt. In her periphery she saw him raise his port to his lips, and when he spoke again he did so in tones as dry and dark as the drink.

"The only people who have that kind of money these days are the _nouveau riche_. They're accustomed to making prudent financial investments, and the modernisations I made to the house aren't nearly enough to interest that sort of buyer. The entire estate must be profitable to them, if I'm to profit from it."

"Lord Grantham encountered this at Downton, as well," Isobel pounced on the topic, much to Mary's mortification. Obviously Richard had some idea already of Papa's money woes; Isobel's needn't be explicit about it. "Matthew spent the better part of last year finding ways to restructure the farms to be more productive."

Now Mary's cheeks were not the only part of her that burned; her eyes did, too, as unwanted thoughts arose of how often Matthew and Papa had argued over how the estate should be run. How often _she _had argued with Matthew for the way he upset Papa, for what he did with the money…So little time they'd had together, and so much of it had been spent arguing.

"-Tom Branson seems to be carrying on admirably as estate manager," Isobel concluded.

Richard coughed as he turned to eye Mary in disbelief. "Your father agreed to allow a socialist from Dublin to manage Downton?"

"You see? We _can_ change with the times."

But when his brows hitched in scepticism, Mary felt a twinge at the corner of her mouth; was he thinking, as she was, of how they'd joked together after Sybil's failed elopement about him running the car over the chauffeur?

"_Some _of us can change about _some _things," Edith said, exchanging looks with Gregson, whose arm moved as if to take her hand beneath the table.

"Perhaps you'll change your mind, Sir Richard," said Rosamund, spooning a bit of marmalade pudding. "An estate, after all, must surely be a necessity to a man on his way to a peerage. Not to mention an attractive feature for prospective brides."

"So one would think."

Mary had kept her gaze steadfastly on her plate, cheeks burning before Richard replied to her aunt, but something in his voice-or rather, the _lack_ of something in his voice, precisely, malice-made her turn her head. The remark had not been one of his well-aimed attacks on her; at least, he was not looking at her now. He did not, in fact, seem aware that her eyes were on him, his thoughts turned inward as he nursed his port.

When the meal concluded shortly after this, the men did not linger in the dining room for cigars, but went through to the drawing room with the ladies. Edith suggested a game of mah-jong, to which Isobel readily agreed, keen to learn the game. Only four could play, and as Richard was not fond of parlour games, Mary felt it was her duty as hostess to keep him company over coffee and spare him more awkward questions from Rosamund. Though as her aunt made up the fourth at the mah-jong table, Mary found herself unable to think of anything to discuss with him than the very subject with which Rosamund had so clearly made him uncomfortable, her curiosity piqued.

If it was curiosity that brought Richard here to see her in the first place, she reasoned, then this was only tit for tat. Turnabout. Fair play, and all of that. And Richard had always set so much store by being on even terms.

"I'm surprised you haven't found a lady to be Mistress of Haxby. I've actually been reading the papers for the past two years, expecting to see your picture in the society wedding of the decade."

Richard's jaw worked as he drank his coffee, then frowned into the cup of black, unsweetened liquid as if he wished it were something much stronger. Molesley, hovering in the corner on tip-toe, looked as if he were about to lurch forward and make just such an offer, when Richard spoke.

"Why? To assuage your guilty conscience about throwing me over?"

Mary looked away, inwardly cursing herself for broaching the subject because yes, the guilt she'd squelched earlier _had _returned.

"You can't be surprised that the three years prior rather put me off weddings." He added, more quietly, "And you never knew me if you thought I wanted to be married for my house."

_You certainly did a good job giving the opposite impression_, Mary thought, but bit her tongue. She had apologised to him, that morning two years ago, for using him, for letting him go to such drastic lengths for her when she wanted none of it. That had been her punishment for strong-arming her into an engagement, and it seemed he was still paying for it-quite literally. She had no need to continue punishing him. Especially not after his admission: _I really loved you. Much more than you knew._

It still surprised her, after all this time, just as it had then. _When _had he fallen in love with her? How had she been too blind to see it? If she had, would it have changed anything?

Her consternation must have showed on her face, because Richard gave a snort of a laugh and said, "Don't fret, Mary. It's not for pining that I haven't married."

She turned to him again-in part to escape Aunt Rosamund's watchful eye from across the drawing room-and arched her eyebrows. "You never knew me if you think I'd accuse you of that."

He might have harbored deeper sentiments for her than she'd given him credit for, but nostalgia? Never.

"I've had more affection without formal courtships and engagements than I had during all the time I spent with you." he said.

"You and Mr Gregson have more than newspapers in common, then. Does everyone in the business share the same set of bold and modern values?"

The dints appeared in his cheeks as he looked almost amused. "It's the 20s, Mary. Though I think you became acquainted with such practices at rather an earlier date."

Her temper flared. "Indeed. Such an early date that you hardly could have published without looking desperate and woefully late with your scoop."

"Talking of which," Richard said, looking at the mantel clock and then beckoning to Molesley, "if I linger here any longer, I shall be woefully unpunctual for a date."

"I hope the rest of your evening is very affectionate," Mary said as she accompanied him to the front hall, Molesley scurrying ahead to fetch Richard's coat and hat and summon his chauffeur.

"Jazz clubs generally are," he said, slipping his arms into the sleeves of his greatcoat as Molesley held it. "That isn't to say I haven't appreciated my reception here immensely."

"Have you?"

Richard had stepped out through the door, but paused on the stoop, drawing his black leather gloves from his coat pocket and absently passing them from hand to hand. In her sleeveless black evening gown, Mary hugged herself against the chill night air.

"There's nothing so reassuring as the juxtaposition of the life I might have had against the life I do have."

He touched the edge of his top hat, pushing it down lower over his deep-set eyes, but as he started down the steps Mary called after him.

"You admit it, then? That we never could have built anything worth having?"

He turned his head so that his face was in profile; Mary could just make out his faint smile beneath the shadow of his hat brim cast by the porch light. "That was always entirely up to you."

Every thought she'd had that something about him was different fled at this reminder that Richard Carlisle never pulled a punch.

But cruel as he could be, crueller still was the whisper in her own mind as she lay in bed not long after, that a warm body beside hers and strong arms around her, rather than the ghosts of bedfellows past, no matter how kind, would be something worth having, indeed.


	3. Pushing In

_**A/N: Happy Easter to all of you on holiday today. :) My apologies for the delay between updates, due to illness. Chapter four is already under way so **__**the next update should come in a much timelier fashion. Thanks so much all of you who are following this fic and have taken the time to leave such lovely comments. I hope you continue to enjoy it-and if you've not been following The Healing Process, by malintzin (who has also helped me brainstorm and beta SWH), you should go read it at once. It's a thoughtful look at how Mary and Richard might have made their way forward if they'd married before the S2 Christmas special as planned and not to be missed by any M/R fan.**_

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**3. Pushing In**

A widow was entitled to take her breakfast in bed, the same as a wife of a living husband, but Mary had not lingered in hers for so much as a cup of tea since Dr Clarkson permitted her to leave it after the birth. Bed was for sleeping and nothing else, and goodness only knew little enough of _that_ had taken place in hers during the past seven months. Although, much as it pained her to acknowledge, sleep came more readily in her bed in London than it had at Downton; here she was lonely, but at least there were no memories of having once occupied it with Matthew to make her lonelier with the longing.

She started down the hall to the staircase, only to hesitate at the top step when Isobel's voice drifted from one of the rooms behind. Mary's fingers closed around the spindle at the end of the banister, her shoulders tightening for a moment before she turned and went back in the direction from which she'd come, past her bedroom to the open doorway of the nursery. Her mother-in-law did not look up from giving George his morning bottle in the rocking chair by the window as Mary stood just inside the door, her hand braced against the moulding, thumb chafing the side of her forefinger.

"Really, Isobel. If you insist on giving George all his bottles, what _is _Papa paying Nanny Philips for?"

Isobel frequently took charge of George's feedings and had done so since he was born, just as Tom took to giving Sybbie hers now and again after the wet nurse was no longer required. It reminded her of when Matthew was a baby, she said; Dr Crawley's medical practice in Manchester was successful but did not afford a nanny, and Isobel even nursed their son herself for the first few weeks of his infancy, establishing a bond she had suggested might comfort Mary in her bereavement. Even if Mary had wished to, her body did not leave that choice open to her; shock and grief, Dr Clarkson said, prevented her milk from coming in only to be dried up with bandages or other remedies. Thank god, for Mary could not bear the thought of raising her baby in any way she would never have considered otherwise. It was bad enough that she had to bring him up without Matthew.

So she left feeding to the nurse, and silently bore Isobel and Tom pouring their broken hearts into Matthew and Sybil's children, whilst resenting the implication that in her son she would find a replacement for Matthew. _"It must be such a comfort to have a bit of your husband to hold on to_,_" _too many people said at the funeral. Matthew never felt more out of reach than when her arms were around their son. It shamed her that she could not make herself feel what she had the first moment Dr Clarkson first placed her beautiful boy in her arms, and no one else had seen her in maternal bliss. No one but Matthew.

_"You think me nice. No one else does."_

_"I know the real you."_

"I believe at the moment she's washing napkins," Isobel replied.

"I suppose that is worth her salary." Mary stepped further into the room in response to George's bouncing to reach for her with chubby fists, having lost all interest in his bottle at the sound of her voice.

"Indeed. Mind your blouse," Isobel warned as Mary took the baby from her. "He hasn't belched."

Even as she arched her eyebrows at the indelicacy, Mary couldn't help but smile back as Georgie grabbed her necklace and immediately tried to put the pendant into his mouth.

"You're chipper this morning." With some struggle she freed her jewellery from George's grasp, then began to tap her fingertips lightly on his back. At once he lay his head on her shoulder, as if hypnotised by the rhythm. Over his head, she caught Isobel's eye. "You, I mean. More than usual."

Not that her mother-in-law's disposition wasn't naturally enthusiastic, but since the death of her son, Isobel seemed to have aged; she did not zip about, full of vim and vigour.

"Do you know, I believe it was the company?" She rose from the rocker more easily than Mary had seen her do in some time, and slipped a cloth under George's head to protect Mary's blouse just in time for his stomach to emit a noisy gurgle. "I feel a renewed sense of purpose in life. I'm a social creature by nature."

Before Mary could inquire about the practical ramifications of this declaration, Isobel stepped around to face her, concern etched on her brow.

"Are you sure it wasn't too much for _you_, my dear? Of course I couldn't hear from the mah-jong table, but you appeared to be having words with Sir Richard before he made his rather abrupt departure. Did he say something to distress you?"

"That was one of our more civil discussions."

Mary patted George's back a little more firmly as she felt his stocking feet kick about her hips. The desired outcome still not achieved, he whimpered. She looked to Isobel, but she had turned her back, retrieving the abandoned bottle from the chair and carrying it to the dresser.

"Compared to how things were between you toward the end," she agreed. "But it wasn't always that way, was it? I realise charm can be deceiving, but I thought he genuinely was when we first met. He couldn't have got far in his career if he didn't know how to handle people."

Mary barely smothered a snort. Richard knew how to handle people, all right, and _charm_ wasn't the word she'd use for his approach to business. Yet she couldn't deny that until he turned that ruthlessness on her, for personal reasons, it troubled her little.

"If you'll forgive me for saying so," Isobel continued, "I never felt that your family gave him a fair chance to prove his worth, like they gave Matthew."

"That was mostly because they were all as in love with Matthew as I was. And Richard was never as easy to like as Matthew."

Ironically, though, it had taken _her_ much longer to warm to Matthew than it had to Richard, who was indeed all charm when they met at Cliveden. Of course in Richard's favour was that he had not been a lawyer from Manchester who was to inherit Downton in her stead, the son the Earl of Grantham had always wanted.

George kicked and fussed in earnest now, and Mary bounced him a little as she increased the pace of her tapping to match the tempo of her heartbeat. Was Isobel purposely ignoring her?

"Well I was hardly in his company to form my own opinion of him," she went on, "so I had to rely on the opinions of others. Lavinia seemed intimidated by him, but then she seemed intimidated by all of you. Matthew didn't care much for him, but I assumed that was because he regarded him as a rival for your affections. Though it was obvious you preferred Matthew…And it was that to which I attributed Sir Richard's surliness. He knew it, and was jealous."

Blackmail notwithstanding, that was about the size of it. "You must have found it strange that Richard and I remained engaged as long as we did."

"What has got our little Master Georgie so out of sorts?"

Nanny Philips stroked through the nursery door at that moment, laying her armload of clean pressed napkins on the changing table before plucking her little charge from his mother's arms. Mary supposed she ought to be grateful to have been rescued from the conversation as well as the chore of coaxing gas from an infant, but the sigh that went out of her, making her shoulders slump and weighing down the tips of her fingers, felt more like defeat than relief as she watched the experienced nurse work. She plopped George unceremoniously down on her lap in the rocking chair, the child's tummy leaning forward against the heel of one hand like a ragdoll, she thumped him soundly on the back with the other. It seemed rough, but almost immediately he let out a resonant belch and traded his expression of misery for a gummy baby grin which widened when Isobel, chuckling, deemed the sound very manly.

"They're hardier than they look, your ladyship," said Nanny Philips, adding after the baby yawned, "but also in need of a great deal of sleep. Shall we say night-night to Mummy and Nana and take our morning nap?"

When they had kissed Georgie, they left Nanny to change him and lay him in his cot, turning down the hall in a tacit agreement to take their breakfast together. The quiet came as a relief after George's fussing, but Isobel never could remain silent for long.

"I'm sorry, Mary, but I'm afraid I've lost the thread of our conversation. You were saying?"

Her first impulse was to feign forgetfulness as well, but she stopped short of actually giving her mother-in-law the brush off. Isobel's take on the situation did not so much as pique Mary's curiosity as exacerbate the itch that had niggled at the back of her mind since Richard came to call.

"I asked whether you thought it odd that our engagement lasted so long."

"Not really. You accepted him when Matthew intended to marry Lavinia, and even when he was free, he gave you no reason to believe he would change his mind. Why shouldn't you have moved on? It was stranger that Sir Richard would want to go ahead with the marriage when your heart plainly wasn't in it. But I suppose one thing all of you shared in common was that it's difficult to let go of love, isn't it?"

"Did you think Richard loved me?"

Mary halted in the centre of the corridor, and Isobel turned back, her surprise at the question evident.

"My dear, I really couldn't say. In any case, it can't have been easy for him to concede to being second choice. Men have their pride, don't they?"

With a puff of a laugh, Mary nodded. Men did, indeed, have their pride-especially men like Richard, who had to fight for everything they'd got. Although in his case, _unyielding ego_ was a more apt description. How ironic that the trait which no doubt made it possible for him to climb to the top of the newspaper business was the very one that caused him to lose whatever tenuous hold he had on her. Did he realise he had been his own worst enemy, not her love for Matthew? Judging by the parting shot he fired at her last night, he did not.

At the emergence of the housemaid, Lilly, from Mary's room, they resumed walking, keeping silent until they reached the stairs.

Mary apologised as they descended. "I hope I haven't spoiled your mood by talking about a sadder time." _A time that had been wasted. _"If you'd rather I didn't see Richard again because of that, I won't."

"It's only natural that grief makes us think of the past. Especially situations that lack resolution. If you feel that Sir Richard is part of you finding your way forward, then it's not for me to tell you not to see him."

They had reached the dining room by that time, stopping just outside the door, facing each other. Isobel's eyes regarded her with such warmth that Mary felt the prick of moisture in her own. Quickly, she stepped past her mother-in-law, making directly for the sideboard, over which Molesley presided.

"It doesn't seem likely that I _should _see him again," she said lightly over her shoulder as Isobel took a plate. "I believe he called on me mostly out of curiosity-ever the newspaperman."

"And might I inquire why you asked him to dinner?"

Mary hesitated, her hand hovering over the handle of a serving spoon, before she answered with a flippant shrug and a slight shake of her head. "A mad impulse."

Actually, madness was not all that far off, when she thought about it. In a certain sense of the word, anyway.

"Isobel?" she asked after they'd been seated at the table for a moment, Isobel perusing the morning's papers and she letters Molesley left at her place. "Have you ever felt…angry…about losing Matthew? Or anyone? Dr Crawley?"

"Do you mean at God, dear?"

"No." Mary looked down at her hands as she rubbed them over her black skirt. That wasn't the anger Richard had read on her face as plainly as if it had been printed in a newspaper. "That isn't what I meant at all."

She wished it were. If only she were angry at God, she wouldn't be so ashamed of herself.

* * *

If Isobel truly feared that past connections might impede Mary's ability to move forward with her life after Matthew, their current location did not support the claim. As they disembarked the cab on Fleet Street, Mary gawped up at the dome of St Paul's Cathedral rising above the rooftops like an iron sun against a colourless sky and felt she was seeing it as she had the last time she'd been here, through the window of Richard's fourth storey office. He'd stood before it, looming tall and broad-shouldered and sharp-eyed on the other side of the desk, which had seemed to her like a massive oaken gateway to the city-to a _life_-and he its keeper. And indeed he was, as she handed over her secrets and he pocketed them like a set of keys.

Though Richard's threats of ruination had long since ceased to bar her way, Mary felt acutely that the ground she trod was nevertheless his territory, without looking down the street and read the letters etched into the towering brownstone façade which declared it to be so: _The Capital Herald. _Even the weather seemed to reflect this fact, as if the drizzle had blurred the very ink on the white broadsheets the newsboys hocked on the corners to paint the clouds and the wet fronts of buildings in a spectrum of grey.

The newspaper was not, of course, their destination, though as she followed her mother-in-law across the street, picking their way around puddles and dodging cars and omnibuses and lorries, she sensed the unshuttered windows gazing after her, as though Richard himself, or the reporters who were his eyes and ears to know everything that went on in the city-he had known she was in town, after all-were watching her every move. At least being dressed in mourning served to camouflage her somewhat amongst the black business suits and prim professional garb worn by the working-class men and women who made their way up and down the pavements at the noon hour. She scanned the bits of the masculine faces showed between the low brims of fedoras and turned-up collars of their greatcoats but did not spy the familiar hard brow ridge and strong cheekbones among those who ducked into the corner tea shops and _café_s.

Luncheon brought Mary and Isobel to Fleet Street, too, though as they approached the entrance to Lyons, tucked beneath a barber shop on the floor above, Mary doubted the establishment could possibly be worth the drive from Hanover Square through the inclement weather.

Isobel, on the other hand, paused heedless of the drizzle to examine the cakes displayed in the front window, and remarked with her characteristic good cheer, "Those look tempting. We should get one on our way out to take one home for our tea."

"I shouldn't think cook will appreciate being made redundant by a chain bakery."

As Mary lowered her umbrella to step inside, she noticed Isobel's smile had faltered, and felt her own face flush that she'd let anxiety get the better of her. She drew a deep breath and resolved to have a better attitude for her mother-in-law's sake.

"The décor is certainly more impressive than the exterior led me to believe."

Or would have been, she amended silently, if the place were not packed like a sardine tin so she could properly admire the clean lines in dark marble and wood. Indeed, as she and Isobel weaved through the maze of tables and uniformed waitresses, it seemed that the only two cane back chairs not filled were at the table where Edith sat waiting for them. Though _waiting _seemed to have rather a loose definition, as Edith was already sipping a cup of tea and rather than keeping an eye out for them, hunched over the table, fountain pen in hand, and scratched feverishly in a notebook.

"Got your nose at the grindstone?" Isobel asked, sidling up to the empty chair next to her. "I'm sorry, was this a bad day to leave the office?"

"Not at all." Edith down her pen. "This is personal. Nothing for the _Sketch_."

"Personal, as in _D_e_ar Diary_?" Mary said as she squeezed into the narrow space allowed by the rotund diner who occupied the chair behind hers.

Flushing, Edith hastily shut her notebook and slipped it inside her handbag; Mary realised how her resolve to have a more uplifting attitude had crumbled as prematurely as a New Year resolution.

"So this is your life now?" she tried again to summon interest. "Slaving away all day in an office and then nipping out for a bite of lunch and a chance to catch up on hobbies? Sounds rather hectic to me, though I daresay Sybil would find it thrilling."

If Edith had taken the first part of the remark as an affront, the last softened the lines that had etched themselves at the corners of her eyes.

"She'd find the Swiss rolls to die for, at any rate," she replied.

After a waitress in a neat black dress and white apron and cap took their luncheon orders-soup all around, though Mary began to second-guess the decision almost at once as the cowl neck of her coat began to itch with the heat of all the tightly packed bodies in the shop.

"Do you come to Lyons often?" Isobel inquired.

"Several times a week-like quite a few other patrons."

"The_ Capital Herald _offices are just down the street," Mary said, glancing around at a few of the nearby diners-as if she would possibly recognise any of the faces Edith knew. "Have you ever bumped into Richard?"

The open stares from the other made her realise at once that she hadn't meant to utter the question aloud. It had skipped through her mind, along with another more unsettling one: a recollection of climbing wearily into the car he ordered to take her back to the station after their interview and thinking, _The least he could have done is take me to luncheon_. But he had not. Twelve hours to London and back by train to see him for less than half of one, during which she entrusted him with a secret that secured him her reputation and her hand. If Richard had really loved her as he claimed to, then why hadn't he courted her? How else was she to have known he viewed their engagement as anything more than a business transaction-one brokered by underhanded means, at that?

"I should imagine _Sir _Richard employs someone to bring luncheon to him," Edith said, "and more likely from the Ritz than Lyons. Or have you forgotten that awful Christmas when he wouldn't stop moaning about the servants having half a day off and how you'd do things differently at Haxby?"

Mary had to concede this was most likely the case, though of course she didn't do so verbally. "I'd be careful not to get on his bad side. For some reason he likes you, and he's made a point of keeping your living arrangements out of the gossip pages."

"Golly, how chivalrous. Especially coming from a man who takes no trouble at all to hide the frequency with which he goes home with music hall performers."

"Is it common knowledge that any of them have secret husbands hidden away in lunatic asylums?"

The return of the waitress with three steaming bowls prevented Edith from saying anything in retort, though Mary had got the better of her enough times in their lives to recognise the open-lipped expression that meant her younger sister had nothing to say even if she'd had the chance. They both took up their spoons and began to eat, Edith sulkily, Mary's lips pursed in triumph, though more out of habit than really taking pleasure from taking Edith down a peg. Her barb had been more vicious than was warranted, especially since she was not in the slightest interested in who Richard went home with; that Edith thought she was, and that she could wound her with this information, was highly provoking.

Her victory wasn't even sweetened by Isobel's evidently being on her side. "Mary does have a point, my dear. I think we all sympathize with Mr Gregson. He seems a kind, intelligent, and forward-thinking man, and it does seem horribly unfair for him to be trapped in a marriage that isn't a marriage at all. But that is why the vows of holy matrimony should not be entered into lightly. _In sickness and in health_ doesn't exclude mental health."

Of everyone in the family, Edith had always been the most pious-Mary thought now how she'd scoffed at Matthew for choosing an afternoon going over the local churches with her sister over a hunt-and she _was _curious how Edith made her peace with God whilst carrying with a man to whom she was not married, who was in fact married to somebody else. Isobel thought she might make a spiritual appeal to Edith, though Mary warned her mother-in-law when she revealed that _this_ was renewed sense of purpose their little dinner party inspired, that Edith historically did not react well to people interfering in her life-one of the few qualities they shared in common.

_"I'm well aware of that," Isobel had replied. "But I can't help but feel that more than anything Edith wants to be noticed, to be looked after. We have to try, haven't we?" _

"No one is more aware than Michael that our relationship violates sacred vows," Edith said, staring down at her soup, in which she traced patterns with the edge of her spoon, "and we regret it deeply." She looked up, though, tilting her chin upward as a challenging note crept into her tone. "But we also quite agree that any god who would judge us for that is cruel, not loving."

Isobel spluttered at that, and Mary sighed heavily and took up for her. She'd said _we_, and however willingly Mary had been included in that, she was here now.

"Perhaps God won't judge you for it," she said, "but society will. Your own family does."

Edith's eyes narrowed. "Let she who is without sin cast the first stone?"

"Come now, Edith," Isobel cut in, losing patience, "if Mary and I judged you, we wouldn't be having luncheon with you now, would we?"

Though Edith's hostility lessened, she continued to regard Mary with some suspicion across the table.

"Let's talk about things a little more appropriate for luncheon, shall we?" Irritatingly, a glance at Isobel revealed that rather than look grateful for Mary's salvaging the conversation, she seemed reluctant to let it drop. Mary reached into her handbag and drew out the folded envelopes she was glad she thought to bring along. "I had letters from home this morning. From Tom and Anna. Tom says Sybbie's becoming quite the chatterbox. And Anna's expecting."

"How wonderful for her," said Edit flatly, and Mary rolled her eyes because it was so very _typical _of Edith never to take pleasure in anybody else's happiness.

Then, she nearly choked on her soup as images rushed back to her from the dinner party earlier in the week: of Edith cuddling Georgie, of her offer to take him upstairs, of a _hunger _in her eyes to savour as much time as possible with her little nephew. And from even further back, of her lying crumpled on her bed, hair askew from where she'd ripped off her bridal veil after Anthony Strallan jilted her at the altar, envy spewing unstoppered from her broken heart: _Sybil's pregnant…Mary's probably pregnant. _

Edith wanted a baby.

Mary hesitated to continue the discussion as planned, whether because she did not wish to wound her sister more deeply, or because she did not wish to heighten the longing because of Edith's situation, she could not say. But when Edith herself recovered from her initial unenthusiastic reaction, perhaps suspecting where Mary's thoughts had turned, she inquired whether Anna's condition would force her to resign.

The remainder of the meal passed in speculation about how Mama would cope with the loss of _another _ladies' maid so soon after O'Brien's departure for India with the Flintshires. It was decided that Mama had contracted such a baby fever herself in her state of new grandmotherhood, and especially in Georgie's absence would likely do all she could to accommodate Anna's condition and her child when it arrived. Edith conversed so amicably on the subject, yet with the proper detachment with regard to a servant's personal life and bemusement with regard to their mother's quirks, that Mary wondered if she had perhaps read too much into the earlier reaction.

Though it seemed she was not the only one to have had such thoughts, Isobel asking, "Have you considered how children might enter into _your_ situation, Edith?"

Across the table, Mary watched the colour drain from Edith's face, leaving her lips pale as they pressed together. Mary's own parted as though to utter something in intervention, but they would form no words nor her voice produce any sound.

Isobel continued, "You may disregard the judgments on yourself for living with a married man, but you cannot ignore how detrimental this would be to any offspring born of such a union. I trust you're taking precautions? Only when I think of that poor maid Ethel endured-"

The scrape of Edith's chair legs against the floor tiles as she stood abruptly interrupted Isobel and drew the attention of several nearby diners.

"I see what this is," she said, her voice shaking; her hand did too as she fumbled in her handbag for money, which she flung down on the table, coins scattering across the surface. "I might have known you saw me as one of your prostitutes to reform."

Both women made vehement protests, beseeching Edith not to go, but she was already striding away from the table with a click of heels toward the door. When it closed behind her with a jingle, Mary arched her eyebrows at her mother-in-law.

Isobel's shoulders slumped, and she looked small and weary and old beneath the brim of her black hat. "I suppose you told me so."

Mary did not disagree.


	4. Smoke and Mirrors

_**A/N: Murray's was a real London nightclub, which featured the actual musical acts described in this chapter, though I bumped them up a few months to suit the timeline of the story. I did not alter anything having to do with dancer/singer Josephine Earle, who I just had to give a cameo role in the fic after I discovered she was, quite coincidentally, recently divorced from a man whose last name was…Glen. And for your listening pleasure, the two jazz songs performed at Murray's are available on Youtube: "Avalon", performed by Al Jolston, and Eddie Cantor's "Margie". As always, thanks to malintzin for beta-reading.**_

* * *

**4. Smoke and Mirrors**

Living in a flat, Edith would not have a large staff in her employ, or even a half-dozen such as she and Isobel had at Grantham House. Still, when Mary rapped on the door of 23 Great James Street, she expected that at least some male servant in livery, be it a butler or a footman, would answer. She was _not _prepared for the man who paid for the flat, wearing a smoking jacket over a knitted waistcoat, carpet slippers showing beneath the cuffs of loose trousers, an open collar, and a look of round-eyed surprise.

"Mr Gregson," she said.

"Lady Mary. This is most unexpected."

"So I gathered."

Clutching her handbag tighter, she leaned to peer around him. The entry could scarcely qualify as a foyer; the front door simply opened directly into the…drawing room? Parlour? What did one call the main room of a flat?

"Is Edith at home?"

Gregson hesitated, his small round eyes darting sideways above his hollow smile in an owlish manner that reminded Mary a good deal of Anthony Strallan. Edith did know how to pick them.

Abruptly, he stepped aside and swept the door open wider, gesturing for her to enter the flat. "Do come in. Your sister's in the kitchen. Making us a bite."

As she entered the flat, Mary barely bit her tongue in time to stop herself saying, _Living with a married man and cooking for him. How modern of her._ _Does she do his washing, too?_

"I'll just let her know you're here," he said, and she nodded as he ducked through a swinging door at one end of the long narrow…lounge? As she contemplated a low sofa, he poked his head back through. "Have you had luncheon, Lady Mary? It's no trouble to whip you up an omelette, as well."

"I've eaten, thank you," she lied through a pleasant smile; she caught a cab directly after services at St George's.

Though Gregson invited her to take a seat, she refrained, instead taking the opportunity to inspect Edith's new living arrangements. Despite the cynical thoughts her taking on an old-fashioned role, he did keep her in the height of modernity.

Downton had cupboards bigger than this flat, Mary suspected, and how she wanted to turn her nose up at the colour scheme of ivory and taupe as being as bland as Edith. But the light palate of the wallpaper, upholstery, and draperies lent the illusion of space to the small dimensions, while honeyed maple wood tones gave her an urge wrap her hands around a cup of hot mulled cider or coffee heavy with cream and froth, and feel the fire at her back from the writing desk nestled between two windows. One could enjoy one's own company in this flat…or, just as comfortably, the company of others. The trio of armchairs and a sofa would seat half a dozen people, the unadorned geometric silhouettes keeping the room from feeling as cluttered as it by all rights should with so much furniture packed into it. There was ample entertainment, too, provided by the phonograph atop a console on the far wall, or the piano behind the sofa, whilst guests partook from the offerings of the small drinks cabinet. Did Edith entertain people-apart from her lover-often? Mary had never thought of her as the hostess type-unless it was to preside over a dull dinner party at Locksley House as Anthony Strallan's wife.

Mary found herself disabused of these prejudices about her sister's priggishness, too, as Edith swept through the swinging door. She wore a green satin tunic and matching blousy trousers, a long scarf tied around her bobbed hair. If Mary was honest, the outfit suited Edith's boyish figure and unbeautiful face-as all the new fashions did; clutching her black handbag in her black gloved hands against the skirt of the austere black mourning suit she'd worn to church, she could not bring herself to admit it.

"My, I feel so terribly overdressed. If only I'd known you were having a pyjama party, I'd have worn my kimono."

"If you'd known the dress code, it would have meant you'd been invited." Edith folded her arms across her chest, and Mary noticed the red varnish on her nails; that must have looked very smart as her fingers clacked over the keys of a typewriter. "What do you want?"

"To talk."

"Didn't you and Cousin Isobel say quite enough the other day?"

"Please don't put Isobel's words in my mouth."

It had come to Mary like a lightning bolt in the middle of one of her sleepless nights, that this altercation between Edith and Matthew's mother was almost exactly like the clashes between Matthew and her father over the management of Downton. How had she not realised before now how similar they were? Well-intentioned and in the right even, but so very wrong in the way they went about showing others the error of their ways. She'd been so reluctant to get between Matthew and Papa, to have to take sides when she'd lived so many years in the shadow of their disappointment. Gladly she'd do it now, whatever the cost to herself, if it would bring Matthew back and render it unnecessary to play the mediator for Edith and Isobel.

Do it she must. She owed it to Matthew, for all the times she didn't stick up for him. She owed it to herself, too, to see if she could be that version of herself only Matthew saw. So far, she wasn't doing a bang-up job.

"Unless you came to tell me you approve of my relationship with Michael after all," Edith said, "I'm not sure I can do anything else."

"Your love life is a good deal little too like _Jane Eyre _for my taste." Edith opened her mouth in protest, but before she could out a syllable of protest Mary went on-in hushed tones, aware of only the kitchen door as their only barrier between them and the subject of their conversation. "Should Mr Gregson's wife throw herself off a burning parapet, I'll gladly embrace him as my brother."

"What a horrid thing to joke about." The hissed words were underscored by the swish of Edith's loose-fitting trousers as she went to her desk, opened a drawer, and took out a cigarette and holder; but in profile Mary saw a faint upward quirk at the corner of her lips as she touched them to the cigarette.

The kitchen door opened with a bump as Gregson backed through it, balancing not two but three plates precariously. Edith took one, kissed him on the cheek and murmured, "Thanks awfully, darling," and he grinned sheepishly at Mary, extending one to her.

"I know you said you'd already had lunch, but it seemed rude to eat in front of you."

"You really shouldn't have, Mr Gregson," Mary said. "I must be going soon."

"How thoughtful, Michael," said Edith through an exhale of smoke as she sat down on the sofa with her omelette, drawing her bare feet up beneath her. "But Mary does have a baby to get home to."

"Of course." Gregson plopped down beside Edith, laying the extra plate on the coffee table. "How is the little chap?"

"Fine."

Mary did not allow her gaze waver from her sister, determined not to let her see that she felt the insinuation about what sort of mother she was. She reminded herself why she'd come-though she was finding it increasingly difficult to sympathize now under attack than when she had allowed her conscience to be persuaded during church to extend the olive branch. If Edith envied the child _her _lifestyle would not permit, she didn't very well have to live it, did she? Now that Mary had come all this way, though, she wasn't about to go home with her tail tucked between her legs because of the likes of Edith.

"I do have to get home to Georgie," Mary said, lifting her chin. "Especially since I'm thinking of going out tonight. And I'd like it if you came with me."

Edith had moved to set her cigarette in the ashtray, but looked back over her shoulder at Mary. "Go out with you? Where?"

"Evelyn Napier phoned to say he's at some place called Murray's most nights, and he'd like to see us. Both of us."

"Murray's the night club?" asked Gregson.

"Surely not," said Edith. "That doesn't sound like Evelyn's sort of place at all."

Mary didn't think so, either-the racetrack was more his turf, if he wasn't actually riding, or the library-but she lifted an eyebrow and asked, "Did you ever think a flat in Bloomsbury sounded like yours?"

Before Edith could retort, Gregson intervened. "Does it have to be tonight? Only there's a new show opening Monday starring Miss Josephine Earle, and we're going to be there anyway."

"It's a big press event," said Edith, smugly. "Everyone who's anyone will be there."

Mary shrugged. "Evelyn said any time that's convenient for us."

She turned to go, and Gregson got up to see her out. In the doorway, she turned back and eyed her sister.

"What does one wear to opening night at a jazz club, anyway? Ought I to invest in a pair of pyjamas?"

* * *

If Mary had felt overdressed in Edith's flat, a nightclub filled with flappers in bright dresses that barely covered their knees made her feel like a dowager in her sedate evening gown, opera gloves, and understated jewellery. She'd never been a wallflower before tonight, not even at the Duneagle ghillies ball last summer when she was too pregnant to dance, while Edith blossomed beneath the chandeliers in chartreuse satin embroidered with pink, red, and orange peonies. Mary was gladder than ever that she'd bobbed her hair, but mostly she regretted coming at all.

As she descended the staircase into the basement-level club, she found herself instinctively curling her fingers, not in a fist, but to take Matthew's hand. She remembered his story of tracking down Cousin Rose to that seedy jazz club in Soho…What was it called? All she could think of was laughing at his description of it as the outer circle of Dante's inferno. Edith had been with him then, to bring the prodigal cousin home.

"You've certainly changed your tune," Mary hissed over Edith's shoulder.

"What did you say?" Edith said distractedly as shewaved to an acquaintance who was mingling near the dance floor.

Murray's was not the Blue Dragon-the name came to Mary at last-a mere back-alley dance hall off Greek Street. On the outside, Murray's rose three storeys above Beak Street with the same unimpressive, yet respectable façade as any of the hundreds of banks and places of business in town. Upon entering, however, she had a sensation of falling down a rabbit hole. Half the main floor was occupied by a restaurant, out of which descended a staircase that led down into the ballroom whose ceiling extended the full height of the building. Pillars divided the cavernous space into the ballroom on the right side, at the head of which was the stage where the band played; to the left, dozens of round tables polka-dotted the carpeted floors.

It was at one of these tables, near the far wall, that Mary spied Evelyn. The urge to hold on to Matthew, to hide behind his broad shoulders, left her and she quickened her pace, winding her way through the maze of tables and people mingling with cocktails to see the familiar face up close.

As she drew nearer and he stood in greeting, leaning across the table to snuff out a cigarette in the ashtray, she saw that he was _not_ just as when she met him last at Ascot before the War, or even in the photograph of him in his regimentals which he had enclosed in a letter at her request. The change that struck her most was not the liberal amount silver in his tidy dark hair, or that it had receded a bit further from his long forehead; it wasn't even that his face, handsome despite never having been formed around what she would describe as a chiselled bone structure, had groan a little rounder, as his formerly trim athlete's torso had evidently done even beneath the slimming black dinner waistcoat and jacket. These were the effects of age-they reminded her of the first time she'd seen Granny's photographs of him as a young sportsman and in the Boer war and been shocked that her distinguished, stout, grey Papa had once been so young and fit-and Evelyn was past thirty now; Lord knew _her _figure was hardly what it once was, beneath the helpful underpinnings of her clothes.

No, what took Mary aback was the shadows beneath Evelyn's drooping eyes, the grey irises were haunted by the same expression that gazed unblinkingly back at her whenever she regarded her own reflection in the mirror.

Evelyn did not sleep.

Dear old Evelyn, who had always moved through life as coolly and unruffled by it as she could only pretend to be on the surface.

When he smiled at her in greeting, she could not decide if it was comforting or more disconcerting that it remained exactly the same as ever: a slight crooked curve of the lips, modest and a little melancholy.

"So glad you were able to make it," he drawled, leaning in slightly toward her as they shook hands to be heard over the music and the din of conversation. "You picked a good night."

He nodded sideways, and Mary's gaze flickered briefly from his face to follow the line of the gesture to the stage. "So Edith tells me."

"Here to cover Miss Earle's new show?" Evelyn leaned around Mary to shake hands with Edith and Gregson, whom she introduced as _my editor._ "I've been following your career with interest."

Edith beamed. "Mr Napier, you've always been one of the nicest fellows I've known, but I can't believe for a moment you subscribe to _The Sketch_. "

"Of course not, but I do have a number of female friends who do. I've been known to take a gander if it's lying out on a coffee table during a particularly dull tea party."

"My-a tea party duller than _The Sketch_?" Mary said, pleased to see Evelyn smirk as though this were perfectly innocuous teasing; Edith, on the other hand, looked offended, and Mr Gregson seemed conflicted about what he ought to make of her remark. He reminded her so much of fussy old Anthony Strallan sometimes, and she sighed. "Take it as a compliment-the only newspaper I've known Mr Napier to read was _Sporting Life _for the racing articles."

"Indeed."

Evelyn's voice was as tight as the smile that twitched at the corner of his mouth and did not reach his eyes. Mary's heart leapt into her throat as she wondered what in heaven's name she'd said to make him look like that, and how she could undo it. Before she could, Edith salvaged the conversation.

"I remember you were always very up-to-date on fiction. You know I'm living in Bloomsbury now, and I bump into Virginia Woolf now and again."

As they chatted about books and Edith's literary acquaintance, Mary contemplated the strangeness of her sister apparently running with an intellectual and famous crowd. Not merely looking on from the fringe, as she always had done in London high society, but part of it, due to the shared interests she had found through her work. Even at the centre of everything, as Mary had always been, she had never felt that sort of connection with others in her circle-and she was reminded keenly of it when Gregson interrupted the literary discussion to invite Edith for a dance before the show began and they must change from party-goers to reporters, leaving her alone with an Evelyn who was not exactly the friend she remembered.

_I found my love in Avalon, beside the bay,_ crooned the singer into the microphone, a top hat tilted jauntily over his forehead. _I left my love in Avalon, and I sailed away._

All around them couples vacated the tables to fill the dance floor, while Evelyn seated Mary and signalled for a waiter to take her drink order. "They do a nice Sidecar here," he told her, a fresh cigarette between his teeth as he lit up, so she requested one.

_Every morn' my memories stray  
Across the sea where flying fishes play._

"You know I was a little alarmed when you said you spent your evenings at a jazz hall." Mary realised it was up to her to start the conversation as Evelyn drew from his cigarette, eyes distant. "I was imagining one of those dark smoky places with a back alley entrance and a bead curtain."

He chuckled, smoke wreathing him with his exhale. "This is a somewhat more exclusive establishment."

"Yet still not exactly the kind of place I would have expected to be your haunt." She cringed; hadn't she mocked Edith for saying the same thing?

"I admit it's not exactly where I imagined myself whiling away my thirties. But I'm a different man than I was before the War."

"So many people are," she remarked. _Except for me_. A War had changed the world, and the people in it; she thought she had been one of them, but then she and Matthew picked up the fragments of their lives before and put them back together with relative ease while everyone else struggled with the puzzle. And now she was alone.

_And as the night is falling  
I find that I'm recalling  
That blissful all-enthralling day_

_Beside the bay.  
And I sailed away._

The waiter returned with her Sidecar, and she sipped tentatively from it, studying Evelyn as he nursed a whisky, cigarette still clutched in that hand. He'd always been as self-aware as he was now, and frank about it. She recalled Mama telling her all those years ago how he'd left Downton without proposing-or intending to return to do so in the future-because he knew Mary did not find him as interesting as he wanted to be to the woman he married.

"Change isn't necessarily for the worse," he said, looking out steadily at the dance floor. "Lady Edith seems very happy writing for _The Sketch_."

"It makes her feel important," Mary remarked with a shrug, and took another drink of the gin and lemon concoction.

"I've heard rumours that her _editor _is rather more than that."

"What are people saying?" Mary hadn't been sure whether Richard's knowledge was common gossip or him making people's private lives his business. She had hoped it was scandalous enough for people that Edith had left home to live alone and work, in contrast with the widowed sister who did neither, without speculating about her sex life.

"Mr Gregson's a married man with an ill wife."

"That's about the size of it."

"Damned bad luck in love."

"An affliction that apparently runs in the family."

Evelyn smiled sadly. "Shall we drink to that? I haven't been so lucky myself."

He ordered another round of drinks, and when they clinked their glasses together they let the final words of the song be their toast:

_I dream of her in Avalon  
From dusk till dawn.  
So I think I'll travel on  
To Avalon._

When the music stopped, applause rippled through the nightclub as the band left the stage for the change of acts and the couples left the dance floor to resume their seats for the show. A flash of bright green in her periphery drew Mary's eye to Edith and Gregson, the latter abruptly leaving her side to approach someone seated at one of the tables nearest the stage, hidden behind a newspaper.

_A big press event_, Edith had said. _Everybody who's anybody will be there_.

Mary imagined she could hear the rattle of the newspaper as it lowered to reveal Gregson's colleague, who was _somebody_ in the press, indeed. She gulped down her drink, cursing the gin burning its way down her throat and herself for not realising before now that Richard Carlislewould undoubtedly be in attendance-and after he'd talked about frequenting jazz clubs, too. Gregson pointed to her, and before her eyes could meet Richard's she swivelled in her chair, pretending not to be aware of him, to be intent on Evelyn.

"What have you been up to that's kept you away from Downton?" She'd invited him several times since the war, after Papa resumed the hunt, but Evelyn always had some excuse or other, which struck her as odd since he'd requested to convalesce there. "We haven't had a single person to stay who's ridden well enough to suit me."

"In that case I was right to stay away, as I could only disappoint." Evelyn drew from the cigarette, which he'd smoked down to a stub. "I seldom ride these days. And by seldom I mean never."

Mary did not know what to say to this. She wanted to ask why, but it might be due to the injury that led to his request to convalesce at Downton, and she had no wish to wound his pride as well, knowing how Matthew had been. So she murmured, lamely, "Oh."

"To answer your question, I've mostly been in town. "It seems the trenches accustomed me to…a rather faster pace of life."

"Matthew preferred to keep busy, too."

For the first time, Mary realised she'd never considered Matthew's constant activity in light of the War. Not that he'd been an idle man before joining up, practicing law in Ripon during the week and attending to estate business with Papa on the weekends. Though to be sure, it wasn't the feverish pace at which he had after the War. In the old days when he pedalled contentedly between Crawley House and the Abbey on that ridiculous bicycle, she'd never imagined him speeding down country lanes in an AC Six.

Unwillingly, she pictured the car being towed by a truck into the front drive, the front end of the car whose green paint he'd been so fastidious about not scratching, smashed beyond repair. She closed her eyes as if to shut out the unwanted image, and to ward off nausea induced by the sensation of the room reeling around her.

"I wouldn't say I've been particularly busy," Evelyn's steady voice coaxed her to open her eyes again. "Everyone finds different things help them cope."

He reached into his dinner jacket and took another cigarette from his case, and as he lit up, Mary asked, "Do those help you?"

"Marvellously." He smirked around a cloud. "So long as I smoke them one after another."

He seemed more relaxed than he had a moment before, and Mary, rather too tightly wound herself despite her two drinks-or perhaps because of them-asked on impulse, "May I try?"

She could scarcely believe herself, and half-expected Evelyn to remark on it. In either a testament to how changed he was, or how changed everyone was, he wordlessly withdrew another cigarette for her and lit it. Taking it awkwardly between her third and forefingers-Did it go palm up or palm down?-she realised she'd not been around many people at all who smoked cigarettes; Matthew and Papa properly restricted their smoking to cigars with their after dinner port away from the ladies. All over Murray's men and women alike smoked, the gentler sex dangling cingarettes from long jade or ivory holders. She took a small pull-a very small one, per Evelyn's instruction-and held the smoke in her mouth for a moment before exhaling so it would cool and not burn her throat on the way out. For the most part this was true, and she was just thankful not to draw further attention to herself with a coughing fit, though her eyes did smart a little.

"Feel better?" Evelyn asked, looking slightly amused.

"No."

He faced the stage as the lights dimmed in all around them, spotlight on the band as they struck up. "As I said, we all cope in different ways."

One of his, apparently, was to brood over his whisky as ten chorus girls in flesh-coloured bathing costumes festooned with bright carnations sashayed their hips in low-slung grass skirts while a man and woman sang a duet. _They_ were modestly attired by comparison-even if it was more appropriate garb for a garden party than a nightclub, all in white, the lady's brunette bob crowned with a wide-brimmed straw hat, the man in shirt-sleeves rolled up to the elbows as he strummed away at a ukulele.

Evelyn was not the only man in the room engrossed in the show through a veil of cigarette smoke. As Mary's eyes raked across the rows of tables, she wondered how many were veterans who craved the pace of life learned in the trenches, spending nights listening to fast music or dancing with fast women, and how many were simply…male. The only man whom she knew for certain had _not _been in the trenches was barricaded behind his newspaper again, as if this was his idea of a war zone.

Of course none of that accounted for the almost equal number of women in the cabaret. Mary didn't understand it, and if she'd had a newspaper, she might have been tempted to hide behind it, too. She excused herself from Evelyn and retreated upstairs to the ladies' room for a few minutes' respite, though there was little enough of that between the queue and the clucking of so many gossiping hens, which only reminded her how removed she was from society. She wanted to go home, and returned to the ballroom with the intent of telling Edith she was going to do exactly that, and say goodbye to Evelyn, when the combined effects of alcohol and her anxiety made her stumble at the bottom of the staircase.

A firm-and familiar-grasp on her elbow steadied her.

"Sir Richard," she said.

"Lady Mary. Fancy meeting you at a nightclub."

"I was just going, actually. After I say goodbye to my-"

"Boyfriend?"

She glanced down at his fingers, still wrapped around her arm-not ungently-then back up at him, raising her eyebrows. "Jealous?"

He released her, dimpling as he gestured toward the front of the hall. "I came with Josephine."

The brunette singer had traded her straw hat for pink plume that matched the boa she now wore as she danced in front of the chorus girls whose quickly changed costumes consisted of poufy undergarments that weren't actually worn _under _anything. The male soloist crooned:

_My little Margie_

_I'm always thinking of you_

_Margie, I'll tell the world I love you_

_Don't forget your promise to me_

_I have bought a home and ring and ev'ry thing._

"You certainly didn't seem to be transported by Miss Earle's voice as you hunched over your evening edition."

Irritation rippled beneath Richard's sharp cheekbone, and Mary smiled. She'd bickered with him enough during their engagement that she never dreamed she'd want to again; at the moment, however, it was the most familiar conversation she'd had all night.

"I didn't imagine I'd have a chance later," he replied, blandly, so that Mary didn't know whether he meant he would be too busy with work or with the woman. Which was exactly what he intended.

"I thought you didn't enjoy watching people appear ridiculous. Those powder box costumes certainly are."

Slipping his hands into his trouser pockets, Richard turned around and looked at the dancers as though only noticing them for the first time. "Well," he said with a shrug, "as long as no one's making me wear one, I won't complain about anyone else's foolishness."

"Pity. I'd hoped you were the one man in the club who might be unaffected by the allure."

"It hasn't affected my ability to talk business," he said, his gaze snapping back to her sharply, as if meeting a challenge. "That's what I came to talk to you about. Or rather, I hoped perhaps you might meet with me to discuss it another time."

"What sort of business?"

"Estate business. Haxby…" One hand went up to smooth the curling hair at the back of his neck. "Haxby eludes me more than I've cared to admit."

"Richard Carlisle admitting something eludes him? Heavens, that's a tempting offer."

"I'll have Miss Fields phone you to schedule an appointment, then?"

"No."

"No?"

"That is to say…"

Contrary to her glib words, she wasn't sure she could handle a Richard who admitted to being out of his depth any better than she could an Evelyn who no longer rode horses.

Although now she thought about it, Richard had not always been unable to own his shortcomings. Proud of his rise in society, yes, but he'd admitted to her that first visit to Downton that he'd admitted he needed help making his way in her world-quite charmingly, too. She wouldn't have entertained the possibility of marrying him if he hadn't been. But…

"I need some time to think about it. I'm sure you understand."

Richard's eyes narrowed on her for a moment, then he drew back, tugging at the starched white cuffs of his shirtsleeves beneath his dinner jacket. "Indeed. I expect nothing else from you. Only I'd very much appreciate it this time if you don't keep me waiting a year and a half for an answer."


	5. Quiet On the Front

_**A/N: The song featured in this chapter is "Pack Up Your Troubles In Your Old Kit Bag, a popular WWI song, recorded by Helen Clark in 1917, and is available on YouTube for the curious. As always, many thanks to all my readers and reviews, and especially to malintzin for betaing.**_

* * *

**5. Quiet On the Front**

Despite how discomfiting it had been to see Evelyn so altered, Mary accepted a supper from Edith, thinking that perhaps the atmosphere of Murray's Night Club had lent to the strangeness. Perhaps the more intimate setting of her flat would show a glimpse of the old Evelyn, who had been her dependable, if occasionally dull, friend. Just to be sure he did not feel too out of his-new-element, she suggested Edith put a jazz record on the phonograph, and to her relief after the meal he lounged in the cream-coloured armchair angled toward the fireplace with one leg crossed and a cigarette between his fingers in the relaxed posture she would expect to see in the smoking room back home.

"Nice place, this," he drawled, gesturing with his cigarette hand; the other rested on the armrest, fingers curled loosely about a glass of bourbon.

Edith thanked him. "I was dubious of a flat, after Downton, but I find cosy living suits me nicely."

Cosy living did not-thank heaven-include wearing pyjamas, though she also lit a cigarette.

"It does me, too," said Evelyn.

"But I'd hardly call your London house cosy," Mary said lightly, thinking of the Viscount Branksome's stately Georgian home in Easton Place, which generally stood vacant except during racing season.

"I've been staying at my club." Evelyn scarcely glanced her direction as he drew from his cigarette.

A lump formed in Mary's throat as it occurred to her this might have been another change affected by the trenches. Out of nowhere she remembered Matthew's request at the start of their marriage to live more simply. She swallowed, forcing down the bilious thought along with the lump. This had nothing to do with Matthew's wish to return to his roots in middle-class Manchester. He was not so different in some ways to Evelyn, who was known for his modesty long before duty required him to wallow in the mud in France.

"I should imagine Lord Grantham doesn't approve," Evelyn said. "Of your career, I mean," he added smoothly, realising how Edith might have-indeed, _had_-taken him to mean; Mary saw the tell-tale twinge of her sister's weak chin as she attempted to hide her reaction by bringing her own cigarette quickly to her lips. "Unless his views on women's suffrage have changed radically?"

"Well…" Edith looked relieved, but nevertheless pink tinged her cheeks as she leant forward on the sofa to tamp out her cigarette in a polished pewter ashtray. "He's less opposed to the newspaper than to the newspaper_man_."

"My father doesn't much approve of me these days, either. He doesn't understand why I don't marry. Have children." His normally smooth tones took on a sharp edge, and Mary noticed his fingers tighten around his glass. "Why I don't ride or go to the races."

"Surely it doesn't require a great deal of imagination to understand why a former cavalryman might give up equine pursuits."

Mary squirmed slightly in her chair; this had not occurred to her. "Your injury," she said. "Of course. Did you suffer a fall?"

Though Evelyn had always been characterised by his candour, Mary was nonetheless surprised by the detail in which he spoke of his experiences in the Battle of Arras in the spring of 1917, culminating with his being pinned beneath his horse after it became entangled in barbed wire. She had taken Matthew's reluctance to speak of the War as the natural taciturn nature of a gentleman who found himself necessitated with carrying on in the face of terrible circumstances that had no definite end; once the end had been reached, they were better not looked back upon. Surely this quality was not uniquely Matthew's?

"As you know, I didn't invalid out," Evelyn continued, and Mary acknowledged him with a nod; shortly after he'd written about the possibility of convalescing at Downton, she'd received another letter from him saying his injuries were healing more quickly than anticipated and he would be sent back to the front. "I went to Amiens. I didn't-I don't-sit a saddle quite as handsomely as I used to, but I am not _physically_ unable to ride. In my mind, however…sometimes it's as if I never left the battlefield. I'm haunted by the sights and the sounds…even the smells…"

As his voice trailed off, Evelyn glanced away, toward the fire but not really looking at it, the mirror image of the flames twisting in his bourbon glass.

"Pertaining to the horses?" Edith ventured, and Mary thought how the last time Evelyn was with them her sister had butted timidly into their conversations; now she was confident, encouraging him to come back to them, the bedside manner she honed to perfection in the makeshift hospital ward in the Downton library. "So many were packed off to the front-"

"Including some of ours," Mary cut in.

"-and so few were returned," Edith said louder, her forehead puckering between her eyebrows-though not at Mary. "It must have been inhumane."

"What those great creatures suffered was…" Evelyn screwed his eyes shut, as if against nightmare images, but when he opened them he wore a haunted look as though he could not rid himself of them. "I don't mean to diminish what the men endured-I understand Captain Crawley expected never to walk again. But the horses were the true innocents." The cigarette hung limp between fingers that pinched it tightly between them, the smouldering butt quivering. "They had even less cause to be there than we did, and less choice."

Edith nodded, but Mary blurted out in undisguised astonishment: "You speak as though you don't believe in the War."

He turned from the fire to meet her gaze levelly. "It's more that I don't believe in wasted life."

_Necessary sacrifice_, Matthew and Papa had always phrased it. The only person Mary had ever heard speak of the War in such bald, cynical terms was Richard. She'd told him just as bluntly that the opinions of a man who wouldn't have volunteered even if he was protected by his age and perceived political importance counted for little, and they'd rowed fiercely. That anyone of _her _lot could share that opinion was inconceivable to her.

_Pack up your troubles in your old kit bag and smile, smile, smile_, Helen Clark and her chorus of male backup singers warbled over the phonograph. The wartime tune carried jauntily by muted horns seemed an almost ludicrous juxtaposition with the images Evelyn painted of horses gunned down by machinated weaponry and riddled with shrapnel and torn by barbed wire-but wasn't that the point? They were English, and their upper lips were stiff.

_While you've a Lucifer to light your fag,_

_Smile boys, that's the style…_

"This song is singularly responsible for my becoming a chain smoker," Evelyn muttered around the fresh cigarette he held between his teeth as he lit it. He offered another to Edith, who accepted it, and to Mary, who did not. As he shook out the match to put out the flame he said, "My father thinks it's me who's the wasted life. So many chaps died. I should marry. Start a family…" His lips parted around an _o _of smoke, and the tone that followed was as hollow. "But what sort of husband does a broken man make? What sort of father?"

He sought Mary's gaze, as if to implore how Matthew had held up in these roles…Her eyes burned back at him. Her jaw tightened, and her thumbs chafed the sides of her index fingers, the fabric of her skirt scratching between them. She wanted to tell Evelyn that he was made of stronger stuff than he thought, that he could-and _would_-be the husband she always knew he would be to a very lucky young lady, but the words stuck in her chest with her breath and lungs as she found herself transported to Matthew's bedside. Where he had lain broken. Believing it unconscionable to marry. Believing himself unable to produce children.

But all that had gone away with Matthew's healing, hadn't it? He had not hesitated to marry her. His anxieties about children had not been over whether he shouldhave them, but whether he could, and he had wanted them right away. All Evelyn had seen, Matthew saw too. Surely he was proof that time truly did heal all wounds?

Time, however, had been the one part of marriage Matthew had not been able to give Mary beyond her most daring expectations. Had it in fact caught up to Matthew that day on the road?

"I think you'll find the women in possession of greater fortitude than when you went off to war," Edith said. "We nursed so many men, you know. Michael always says I'm such a comfort to him, when he faces the ghosts of the battlefield."

"Then I'm sure you'll appreciate that some of us have had more than enough of nurses," Evelyn replied. "Enough of compassion and pity. I shouldn't like to feel..._grateful_ to my wife."

_Not to _worry, _there's little resembling gratitude in your tone-_but Mary bit her tongue from speaking the words aloud.

"It's unfair to assume women want to offer those things," Edith said. "Or that if they do, there's anything wrong with that."

There was a wistfulness in her voice that made it plain she was talking about Anthony Strallan, and about their father's reasons for opposing the marriage. Had Edith really lovedthe old goat all along? Does she still? What of Gregson?

As Mary watched Edith regard their old friend with the sad puppy eyes which no doubt ingratiated her to so many convalescents, and had gazed in desperation and disbelief at Sir Anthony's back retreating down the church aisle, something akin to the frustration Viscount Branksome must feel toward his son knotted in Mary's chest. Women like Edith would jump at men like Evelyn-men who were respectable, and not already married, and not damaging to their and their families' reputations. Why did he refuse to leave the trenches?

"We're all living in a different world to the one we knew before," Edith went on, seemingly almost in answer to Mary's thoughts. "We're all searching for where we fit into it."

_While you've a Lucifer to light your fag,_

_Smile, boys, that's the style._

_What's the use of worrying?_

_It never was worthwhile, so_

_Pack up your troubles in your old kit-bag,_

_And smile, smile, smile._

The refrain repeated one final time, and Evelyn smiled.

"It seems a world made for women now. You a successful journalist. Mary a mother."

As his kind gaze touched her she felt Edith's on her too. Was it the same judging look as Sunday afternoon? _Mary has a baby to get home to._ Evelyn believed War made him unfit to parent; was the shock of sudden widowhood a comparable experience to what he endured at the front? Mary doubted it. For Matthew, she must pack up your troubles.

She stood, and she forced her lips to return his smile. "I suppose that's my cue to go and kiss Georgie goodnight."

Of course by the time Mary crept down the upstairs hallway of Grantham House, where the bedrooms lay, the usual night-time sounds of Nanny Philips shushing the fussy baby or crooning lullabies over his coos had been silenced.

"I kept Georgie up for you as long as Nanny would allow," said Isobel, emerging in dressing gown and plaited hair from her own bedroom at the creak of Mary's step in the hall and finding her poised with her hand on the nursery doorknob. "You won't wake him if you want to look in on him. I often do."

Though her mother-in-law meant well, something in Isobel's tone-the subtle implication that Mary _should _go in, that she was somehow remiss if she did not-made her reluctant to heed the encouragement. Other women, Isobel, Mama, talked of how peaceful babies were in their sleep, but every time Maryhad watched George, she noticed every pucker of his small forehead, the drooping of his lips, the soft whimpers, and feared that his sleep was as plagued as hers. Now she could not shake the thought that looking at him might reveal something missed on Matthew's face when he lay vulnerable in slumber.

Or the reminder that the care of her own child was another woman's domain-and a woman whose rung on the social ladder was far beneath her own, at that. Evelyn had been kind to mention motherhood alongside Edith's career, but the truth was that the role provided Mary with little enough to occupy her, let alone to close her days feeling tired from having done good work, as Sybil spoke of. As Richard had, too, when she asked once why he did not leave the newspapers to his underlings, now that he had secured his fortune.

With a shake of her head, she shuffled down the Oriental hall runner toward her room.

"Did you have a nice evening with Edith and Mr Napier?" asked Isobel, following at her heels.

"I suppose. Will you go to the centre again tomorrow?"

"I thought I might. Would you like to go with me?"

Isobel's rekindled purpose had got off to a ragged start with Edith, but she seemed to be faring better with the parish programme to help fallen women. How was it that everyone but Mary-and Evelyn-seemed to have a life's work? Edith had her writing, Isobel her charitable endeavours. The latter Mary had never found inspiring-even during the War when she had helped Mama plan benefits or worked alongside Sybil in hospital, she cared little beyond how she might help Matthew-and the former were hobbies rather than life's work. _My life makes me angry_.

She shook her head and reached for her doorknob.

"Or perhaps I won't," Isobel said. "We might take Georgie for an outing. Unless you have other plans?"

"Yes, actually," Mary heard herself say without thinking about it. "Richard Carlisle's asked me to advise him about improving Haxby."

"Oh," said Isobel. Her eyebrows drew together in a worried expression, then twitched apart again as she flashed a smile that did not reach her eyes. "Well, twelve thousand acres should be sufficient to interest you."

Mary opened her bedroom door and stepped inside. "It's something to do."

* * *

The last-and only-time Mary came to see Richard at the _Capital Herald_, she had made an appointment with him, and he had admitted her promptly into his office upon her punctual arrival. She expected nothing less this time, yet here she waited, in the anteroom to his office, seated in a straight-backed armchair upholstered in green like the ones that stood before his desk, listening to the clack of typewriter keys beneath the secretary's fingers and Richard's shouts muffled beyond the door. _Fiancée_s, she mused, afforded more consideration than other visitors. Or perhaps it was that _former __fiancées _afforded less.

She inclined her head just slightly toward the door, mindful of not appearing too obvious in her eavesdropping, should Miss Fields look up from her work. Not that she was gleaning much from her little breach of etiquette, anyway; the only voice she could pick out was Richard's, which told her he must be shouting at someone over the telephone, but she could discern none of the words.

A full ten minutes elapsed during which Miss Fields typed on, seemingly oblivious to the shouting from her employer's office behind her, as if it were simply white noise, while Mary arranged and rearranged her gloved hands in her lap and asked herself just what she stood to gain from this meeting. She was not, as she had flippantly told her mother-in-law, so desperate for something to do that she was willing to subject herself to the ill-temper currently on display from behind the closed door. Nor did she have any particular need, as Isobel had suggested, for closure from that chapter of her life-though she had hoped, when he first called on them, that he might show her what it was he'd thought they could build together. But they had not been friends before they were affianced, not the way she and Matthew had been prior to his first proposal, and on their meetings since he had not given her much sign that there was anything to salvage from the wreck of their engagement.

That he had sought her help indicated that he seemed to regard her as an equal-or, at the very least, as a worthy opponent. Strong and sharp. She could do with a reminder that she was both. A part of her-The nice part, perhaps? The part only Matthew had seemed able to see?-still felt as she had the morning Richard left Downton: sorry that he was stuck with an estate he had bought for her. Haxby Park was less easy to dispose of than the pearl engagement ring she had returned to him.

Her gaze settled on the fourth finger of her left hand as she thought this. Quickly she shifted them again, covering it with her right, but she too late to stop her imagining that awkward telephone call a few days after his departure, after she realised she'd forgotten to give him the ring. Drop it in the post, Richard had told her. You accepted my proposal by letter, after all. It'll be a tidy book-end.

The office door banged open, and Mary looked up with a start as Richard strode through, scowling; his look of displeasure deepened as his gaze touched Mary, briefly, but then flickered to Miss Fields, who had stopped typing at his emergence.

"Carry on with the arrangements," he instructed her, and the secretary gave a curt nod.

"Very good, Sir."

"Lady Mary." Richard shifted his attention and his mood so abruptly that she felt slightly unsteady on her feet as she stood, and was almost grateful for the firmness of his handshake, except that it made her think of the bargain struck here previously. You're entitled to be in my debt. "Forgive my lack of punctuality."

"And it was mine you were worried about."

"Just prior to your arrival I received a telephone call which I had to take." Releasing her hand, he gestured for her to go through the open office door. "I intended to deal with it briefly, but the caller proved more stubborn than anticipated."

"I'm sure you squared everything away for the evening edition with your usual aplomb."

"It was a personal matter."

"You deal with all your personal matters by shouting, then? Not just the ones involving me?"

The sound of the door clicking shut made Mary turn back to see Richard leaning against it, the harsh lines of his face now indicating fatigue as much as frustration.

"The caller was my brother. George."

"I'd forgotten your brother was called George."

"Or that I had a brother at all, no doubt."

Richard pushed off the door with his shoulder, watching her as he circled around to his desk with his sharpening blue eyes. Mary felt the dig at her lack of interest in meeting his family, which had been one of the many points of contention between them when they were engaged. At least he had not remarked on her giving her son the same name-though she was sure he must be thinking it.

"My father has been ill, you see."

"I'm sorry to hear it," she said. Ignoring Richard's expression, which seemed to say, _Are you, indeed?_ she asked, "I hope it's nothing serious?"

"He'll be fine," Richard replied, almost too quickly. He stood between his chair and his desk, running his fingers over the edge. "George's stupidity, on the other hand, is incurable. But you didn't come here to discuss the mental deficiencies of younger siblings. Shall we get to it?"

Again he gestured with his hand, now to indicate the chair on the other side of his desk, where she'd sat on her previous visit. Mary seated herself in the one beside it in a minor act of defiance, though she still perched at the edge, clutching her handbag on her knees. The upward twitch of Richard's eyebrows indicated that none of these details went unobserved.

"Something seems different here," she said lightly, hoping to distract from her obvious unease. She glanced around the office until she had a better rein over her emotions, before fixing him with a bland gaze. "I know what it is. Not a hint of cigar smoke."

"Quit." Richard lowered himself into his chair. "Nasty habit."

"I don't know…I always thought it lent a certain aura. You sitting here, plotting in your newspaper lair, wreathed in smoke."

"It's unhealthy."

Richard's tone brooked no further discussion. He had never taken jokes about himself well, though Mary wondered if in this case it was less to do with his lack of humour than a connection with his father's illness. She did not ask. The only question in her mind was how to extricate herself from this uncomfortable scenario as quickly as possible. It had been a mistake to come here at all; it would be an even bigger one to stay with him in this temper.

"You know it's really Tom you ought to be talking to. He gave Matthew a lot more advice about modernising Downton than I did."

Richard sat back in his chair, fingers steepled and his head tilted as he regarded her thoughtfully. "It's strange, you being on a first name basis with the chauffeur. Oh, I know he's your brother-in-law, but I recall quite vividly how you asked me to run him over. I was never sure you were entirely joking."

The dimples winked beneath his cheekbones, but disappeared again as quickly as they had shown themselves as he leaned forward to shuffle a stack of papers on his desk.

"I'm sure you can appreciate my reluctance to be advised on estate management by a man who only a year ago was involved in the destruction of such properties."

"Would you be singing a different tune if it had been Downton his associates burned to the ground?"

His eyes flicked up with a flash, and when he spoke, she heard the tremor of impatience. "Your impression of my vindictiveness is strange in light of my not having published your scandal."

A valid point, but not one Mary could acknowledge without ceding ground to him. "I'm sure you took no consideration as to how such a publication might have tarnished _your _public image. Or perhaps you like to inflict more personal wounds."

"Such as soliciting help and admitting my ineptitude to the very woman who played me for a fool?"

The span of the desk between them seemed to shrink as Richard stood.

"I know it's not befitting well-bred ladies such as yourself to display any sort of work ethic," he went on, sliding his fingers along the desk as he rounded the corner with the languid ferocity of a lion prowling a cage, "but even so I'm surprised at you. Letting the opportunity to rule Downton slip through your fingers. Leaving the work to men who know little about it."

"As if you knew anything at all about estate management when you bought Haxby."

"For _you_ to manage. That was what you'd led me to believe you wanted. To inherit. To be lord of the manor. I couldn't give you Downton Abbey, but I could give you a position and power. It turns out you were more _feminine _than you claimed to be."

His scorn made her heart hammer against her ribcage, but she forced herself to inhale long and exhale slow so she could still the quaver in her voice before she spoke. "You were quite wrong, It was Matthew I wanted."

"Oh, rest assured you made that perfectly clear during our engagement."

He had reached her side of the desk now, but stopped just past the corner and sat at the edge, the casual posture belied by the whiteness of his knuckles as they gripped the wood.

"In hindsight I suppose I rather dodged a bullet. Your knowledge of estate management coming from the man who lost his fortune in idiotic investments, I might have found myself in direr financial straits than I am now."

Clutching her handbag, Mary rose from her chair. "Since you have such a low opinion of my intelligence, Sir Richard, I won't waste any more of your time attempting to assist you."

As she turned to go she heard him sigh.

"That isn't my opinion." Richard spoke so low Mary thought he must do through gritted teeth. When she faced him again, he was lowering his hand from pinching the bridge of his nose. "How did he do it, Mary? How did a lawyer from Manchester recover a fortune squandered in the Canadian Railroad?"

"How do you know what Papa invested in?"

"Not by any means so devious as you imagine. Men do discuss such uncouth matters as money over cigars and port. Even earls."

For a wild moment Mary wanted to completely abandon the current thread of conversation and grasp the one that dangled from last night's with Evelyn. _Did Matthew ever talk about what it was like in the trenches?_

Lifting her chin, she said, "He inherited a fortune of his own. From Reginald Swire."

Richard had not looked half so shocked when she told him she'd taken a lover who died in her bed. "Lavinia's father made Captain Crawley the beneficiary of his will? After the way he treated her during their engagement?"

It was on the tip of Mary's tongue to defend Matthew's honour and tell Richard her husband hadn't wanted to take the money, that he felt remorse for how he treated Lavinia, but she caught herself. In this light, her own behaviour shamed her. How could she have been so selfish as to quarrel with Matthew about his principles? Even if he _had _unfairly tried to make her share in the blame of Lavinia's broken heart.

"You certainly have the authority to judge a man's treatment of his fiancée," she shot back at Richard. "It must rankle, mustn't it?"

"What? That an old rival inherited a fortune that bought the car he died in?"

Tears stung her eyes, and Mary turned again to go, but as her fingers touched the doorknob Richard spoke again.

"You may not realise this, but in 1912, Swire owed me enough money to bankrupt him."

Without turning around, Mary said, "You waived the debt because Lavinia stole the Marconi files for you. She told me."

"So it was technically _my_ money that saved Downton." After a pause for it to sink in, he. "That must rankle."

"Not nearly as much for me as it must for you."


	6. Sincerest Apologies

**_A/N: Your response to the previous chapter really motivated me to update, but time has not been on my side. Hope you can forgive the delay in posting. Thanks so much to my readers for sticking with this fic. Things are heating up! And thanks to malintzin for all her assistance. This story would be a mess without her!_**

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**6. Sincerest Apologies**

Ostensibly Evelyn had called on Mary to meet her son at last, though as they sat in the drawing room after luncheon she noted how uncomfortable he seemed. Granted, he was no more awkward than many young men of her acquaintance were around children or, if she was honest, than she was herself with every child but her own and Sybil's. Nor was Georgie making himself very amiable, more fractious than usual as he cut a pair of new teeth. But Mary had not forgotten what he'd said about feeling unfit for fatherhood; the now familiar way he reached into his jacket pocket for his cigarette case with trembling fingers made her think his aloofness was due at least in part to the mental anguish he continued to suffer these few years out of the trenches.

Nevertheless, as Evelyn made small talk with Isobel about jazz musicians he enjoyed and a book he had read on Edith's recommendation, Mary couldn't help but compare him to Richard Carlisle. _He_ had more reason than anyone to feel ill at ease in the company of George Crawley, yet when Richard visited, he'd not only admired the baby but taken his tiny hand in his own as if he were making the acquaintance of a business colleague.

Georgie whimpered and began to squirm on her lap, and Mary realised she was squeezing him too tightly as she reacted viscerally to the notion that Richard could be compared favourably to anyone, least of all Evelyn, after the hateful things he had said to her the other day. She relaxed her hold on the baby, bouncing him on her knee in the way he had liked yesterday, and deliberately did _not _think of Richard and how angry he made her.

No, if Evelyn must be compared to anyone, it ought to be Matthew. He'd walked in the valley of death, too, If her friend was to be believed. He had wanted a child as much as he had wanted Mary. When they had George, Matthew had not hesitated pluck him from her arms and cradle him as naturally as if he'd been holding babies all his life, and in the father's adoring gaze was no hint of shadow.

He'd survived four years of war to die not an hour after his son's birth in a ditch not a mile from home.

Anger roiled in the pit of Mary's stomach more furiously than it had a moment ago toward Richard. Why had Matthew left her then? Why had she let him go? Why did he have to drive the bloody car? And how could he have been so damn _careless_?

_Likely dazed by his own happiness, poor chap_, she'd heard someone say-Papa? Tom? Dr Clarkson? She couldn't remember who, having been too dazed herself-but now Evelyn made her wonder. _Had _it been possible for a man who experienced all they had been as happy as Matthew had led her-and she had so willingly allowed herself-to believe?

George squawked again, and when Isobel came to rescue him she suggested they all go out for a walk in the park, as it was such a fine day. Evelyn agreed readily, but Mary could not enjoy the first cloudless day they'd enjoyed in the weeks of lingering winter. The sunlight glared in her already watery eyes, and the sight of Isobel pushing George's pram up ahead made her chafe her thumbs against the sides of her index fingers in impotent frustration; the baby, at least as far as she could hear, was soothed by the rolling of the pram as he had failed to be in her arms.

"People will think she's the nanny," Mary remarked as she and Evelyn lagged behind her mother-in-law's brisk pace, unable to keep the note of resentment out of her voice.

"A doting grandmother makes for a lax chaperone," Evelyn said.

"Goodness. And I thought you only came to meet George. Have you plans for something untoward?"

"I suppose speaking in private would have been rather untoward once upon a time." The lines of his forehead arched in amusement. "It's the Twenties now."

"So it is." They had come to a park bench, and Mary sat. "Very well, then. Tell me your secrets, and I'll tell you no lies."

"You make it sound much more interesting than it really is," Evelyn said as he strode around the back of the bench to seat himself at the opposite end. The note of self-effacement in his voice made Mary glance away, cheeks warming at the memory of Mama relaying his words that he wanted his wife to find him interesting. "I only want to apologise."

"Apologise?"

"For being such wretched company the other night at Edith's."

"Don't be silly, Evelyn, it was a lovely evening."

"Do you think _me_ so silly as not to know my conversation distressed you?"

Mary let out her breath, and it shuddered more than she would have liked, but at least she did not actually cry. "It did," she admitted, but she added, turning slightly on the bench to meet his eye. "But not for the reasons you think."

Evelyn said nothing, but watched her intently until she realised he was waiting for her to go on. She was not accustomed to that. Matthew would have let it go, not expected her to explain herself more fully. His acceptance that she had her reasons for silence had always been one of the qualities she appreciated most about him; before now it had never occurred to her that there might have been times when it would have been better to say more than she had. Or that she might have probed him to say more.

"Only that your views about the War surprised me."

Now it was Evelyn who glanced away, the hint of colour on his rounded cheeks. "You must think me damned unpatriotic."

"Of course I-" Mary caught herself in the polite lie as he caught her eye again; his lips quirked in a wry grin.

"It's all right. Father does. Jolly near everyone would."

Mary looked out across the park and saw Isobel making the turn to come back to them. Her black-clad figure and the black pram contrasted strikingly with the green and yellow hues of the sun-dappled grass.

"Perhaps king and country aren't as important as we've always believed," Mary said. "Edith certainly didn't seem scandalised by your views. And seeing as she wasn't at the front herself, she can only have heard them expressed by other men who were. You're not alone, Evelyn. "

The look he gave her was dubious, but he said, "Neither are you."

Mary wasn't sure she had any more confidence in this assertion than he did at hers, and it seemed as Isobel approached that the cries pealing from the pram echoed Mary's own loneliness.

"I believe the fresh air and sunshine have ceased to divert Georgie from teething," Isobel said.

Mary stood and reached down into the pram to adjust the stocking which he'd kicked loose and now flapped from the end of his toe like a white flag of surrender. "It's all right, my darling boy. The weather doesn't really suit my mood, either."

He looked up at her so pitifully, one fist jammed into his mouth, that she scooped him up in her arms. This seemed to bring him some comfort, though Mary's own pulse quickened as she felt his little heart hammering against her breast, his feverish brow radiating warmth through her cheek. By the time they had said their goodbyes to Evelyn, who hailed a cab from the park, and walked back to the house she was only too relieved to hand over Georgie to the care of Nanny Philips and to be assisted by Molesley out of her coat; the shoulder was sodden from where the baby had gummed it instead of his fist.

"Molesley?" Isobel said, examining the hall table where a flat square box wrapped in brown paper and string resided. "Was this parcel delivered while we were out? It has no return address."

"Yes ma'am-from Sir Richard Carlisle. It's for Lady Mary."

"Sir Richard Carlisle!" Mary parroted. "You can't mean he delivered it himself?"

"That he did, m'lady." Molesley scarcely spared her a glance for his fascination with the package.

Suddenly and with a pang, Mary wished Carson were here, to be officious and offended about having to allow a parcel from Richard, never mind Richard himself, to darken the door of the Earl of Grantham's home.

"Didn't you ask him to stay?" asked Isobel, never one to forego social graces for the sake of holding a grudge. Of course, if Mary had told her about the previous day's interview, she doubted even Isobel could be so generous in bestowing the benefit of the doubt.

"I told him madam and her ladyship had gone for a stroll with Mr Napier and would no doubt return soon, but he said he couldn't wait," Molesley replied. He turned to Mary. "Shall I carry it to the drawing room for you to open, m'lady?"

She nodded, wincing a little as he hefted the unwieldy parcel into his arms, and followed him down the hall.

"Would you like privacy, my dear?" asked Isobel, at her heels.

"Why? You'll find out what it is sooner or later."

"I do hate to be nosy."

Mary scarcely restrained a snort. Was her mother-in-law so unself-aware? But when she paused in the doorway to glance over her shoulder and saw Isobel looking pale and forlorn in her black walking suit and hat her conscience chided her. She was not the only person who had lost Matthew, nor the one who had loved him the longest.

Smiling wearily, she said, "I think some moral support is in order when one receives a mysterious parcel from Richard Carlisle."

As it turned out, the recipient of the parcel was not Mary at all. Inside the brown paper they found a Harrod's box; the attached card read _Mr George Crawley. _

"Well," said Isobel, "we can't open it without Georgie."

Before Mary could utter a word in response-favourable or otherwise, she couldn't say, for the difficulty of getting her head around the notion that Richard had sent a present to her son-Isobel asked Molesley, on his way to fetch tea, to have Nanny bring the baby down if he'd finished his bottle. Soon, George was contentedly gumming a biscuit as he sat amid the brown wrapping and the tissue paper from the box Mary unpacked.

"Why, it's an electric train!" said isobel.

"Richard seems to have mistaken the interests of a six _month _old with a six _year _old," Mary replied, her gaze drifting to George; he was too delighted with crinkling the paper to notice the contents of the box.

Isobel seemed not to have heard Mary as she unpacked the handsome black and gleaming brass steam engine, five colourful cars, a set of tracks, and even a water tower.

"Matthew had a little steam engine as a boy. It kept him occupied for so many happy hours. I admit I rather enjoyed it, too."

Unsurprisingly, she knelt on the floor and began to assemble the tracks, but Mary's amusement was truncated when George inexplicably lost interest in the paper and began to fuss again. As he flailed his fists he lost his precarious balance, toppled over, and wailed louder. Mary set down her cup and saucer, but as she stood and reached to set him to rights, Isobel started the train and it began to chug around its miniature track. Georgie rolled over and pushed himself up on his arms, wide blue eyes following the circular route of the engine without blinking.

"Like father like son," Isobel said with a smile, but Mary did not miss her choked voice, or the mist in her eyes. She blinked it away. "It's a very generous gift, but why can Sir Richard have sent it? Did he enclose a note? Is he courting you?"

"Sending meaningful gifts is hardly Richard's courtship style. I believe it's an apology."

"Whatever for?"

Mary refrained from remarking on Isobel's earlier claim of hating to be nosy, folding her hands together in front of her skirt. "It seems you were correct about some things being unresolved. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that some things left unsaid came out as very choice words."

"Oh dear." Isobel's smile faltered only slightly as she watched George, who was utterly entranced by the toy train. "I do recall he him displaying the occasional ferocious temper. Was he also in the habit of making amends for it in the form of gifts?"

"No. That's new."

"Mary," said Isobel, reaching up to take her teacup from the side table, "I hope you are not putting yourself in the position to be wounded by this man's bitterness. You're in a fragile emotional state."

She meant well, but Mary bristled. The perception of her _fragility_ was exactly why she had left Downton to stay in London. Richard might harbour a grudge about their relationship, but she never doubted for a moment that he thought her strong enough to shoulder the weight of his honesty. _Strong and sharp. _

"Don't worry about me. I had the last word."

It was her own words that lingered with her throughout the remainder of the afternoon. _That's new_. During the time he'd been her unrelenting fiancé, she never would have believed Richard capable of change. Was such a thing possible, after all? In other areas than giving up smoking?

The thought nagged at her until she at last went into the study, picked up the telephone on Papa's desk, and asked the operator to put her through to the _Capital Herald. _

"Mary," Richard's voice crackled over the earpiece when Miss Fields transferred her call to his personal line. "What can I do for you?"

The question was innocuous enough-exactly what one would expect a man to say in such a situation as this, and exactly how she had expected Richard to receive her call. That was what struck Mary, now. Once during the entirety of their three-year courtship and engagement, just a few months after his proposal, she had phoned and been greeted with _To what do I owe the pleasure? _and he had truly sounded pleased, the word uttered in tones rich with surprise and _hope_. She had not breathed a syllable about his offer of marriage, however, only asked whether he could track down whether John Bates was working it Kirbymoorside as Anna suspected. Every call after, he'd answered in increasingly clipped syllables of barely restrained frustration that she spoke with him only with the expectation that he do something for her.

At the time she had not cared-their arrangement was a business one, she'd justified it at first, and later it had been punishment for the way he'd forced the engagement-but now she flushed with long overdue shame. How could she be so transparent? So unabashed in using another person, regardless of whether he deserved it or not? She was better bred than that-or so she had always believed. No wonder Grandmamma had been less than impressed with her attempts to squeeze more money out for Downton.

Grasping the telephone tighter in her moistened fingertips, Mary squared her shoulders and drew a steadying breath, as she had that long ago day in Richard's office. "You can accept my gratitude. The gift you sent George was very…extravagant."

Richard said nothing, but she could hear the static of his heavy exhale across the telephone lines. He mustn't think this was about the monetary value of the gift, that she didn't understand the meaning behind it.

"And very kind," she added, her voice more unsteady than she would have liked. "Thank you, Richard."

"I gave my nephews the same train set for Christmas and my brother says they're mesmerised-though he means it as an accusation. My sister-in-law has some trouble tearing them away for school and chores."

"At least we've a few years before we'll have to worry about that."

Another heavy puff of breath from Richard. "I suppose it's not a suitable plaything for an infant. Mark-the eldest-is ten."

"Perhaps not," Mary admitted, "but it has the same hypnotic effect on him. It's the most effective teething distraction he's had all day. And he liked the brown paper, too."

"I'm glad."

Mary waited for Richard to continue, but he did not. In the prolonged silence she caught herself wrapping the cord connected the earpiece to the microphone around her hand. She had said everything she intended to, but Richard clearly did not think the conversation had reached its end, or he'd have hung up by now. For that matter, she realised, she must not either, or she'd never have phoned in the first place, and simply written him a thank-you card instead.

What did he want from her? What did she want from him? Resolution?

"You could have stayed," she blurted out, "after you went to the trouble of delivering it yourself."

"I had to get back to the office. And you had company already. I didn't want to intrude on your time with… Mr Napier, is it?"

His voice was taut, and Mary's stomach cinched instinctively with the thought that he must be jealous that she had other male attention. But no-he hadn't spoken Evelyn's name with the same malice with which he always pronounced _Matthew Crawley._ The tone was one she recognised-it took her back to the day he left Downton for the last time, when she'd caught him attempting to skulk away unobserved by her family. He was contrite-as well he should be-yet embarrassed to have his fault acknowledged.

How different he was to Evelyn, who had come right out with his apology.

_But how very like her. _

Yet some part of Richard must want her to address his attempts to make amends, or he wouldn't have delivered the gift in person.

_What did he want from her?_ she asked herself again, the telephone cord pressing into her palm as she tightened the loop around her hand.

"I suppose in return you expect me to once again offer my advice about Haxby?"

"My only expectation is that you believe how sincerely I regret bringing my personal frustrations into our meeting. I made you my punching bag, and that was wrong. Especially when you're coping with your own…" He paused, as if reconsidering his choice of words. "…difficult circumstances."

That was treading a little close to Isobel's reference to her _fragility_, but Richard was right. Losing her husband _was _difficult. And he _was _wrong to take his anger at his own troubles out on her.

"How is Mr Carlisle?" she asked.

A second's hesitation, then: "In the very best of hands, receiving the very best of care."

"I'd expect nothing less from you," Mary replied, the corners of her lips twitching slightly in a smile. Just as quickly they tugged downward again, and she asked impulsively, "Richard, if…you still need me, I'll help you."

She hoped she wasn't being played for a fool, that Richard, expert manipulator, had not engineered this scenario-feigning remorse, appealing to her forgiveness with the gift to George, insisting he had no ulterior motive for the kindness- precisely to solicit her help. To do so would require him to make himself an object of pity in her eyes, and she could not imagine him even feigning that concession of ground. Still, she was taking no chances subjecting herself to his cruelty.

"But you must promise me," she said. "No insults to my family, no digs at my husband, no bitterness about our history."

Richard chuckled, once. "You don't ask for much, do you?"

Mary could picture him leaning back in his chair, chin tilted upward, that sardonic gleam in his blue eyes, and though he could not see her, she arched her eyebrow in response. "Did you ever expect anything less from me?"

"No, indeed," he replied, laughing low. When the sound faded he said in a voice still lower, "And I was always more than willing to give it."


	7. Choosing Teams

**A/N: Only a week between updates! Thank you all so much for your continued enthusiasm about this story, which hugely inspired me to write this chapter. As did Gilpin, Malintzin, ****and Sakurasencha, without whom I never would have figured out the business of modernizing failing English estates.**

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**7. Choosing Teams**

"These are your land agent's most recent accounts?" Mary looked up from the ledgers spread across the carved walnut desk to Richard, who sat across from her in Papa's London study. "Not the ones from when you bought Haxby from the Russells?"

"Last month's," Richard replied as hunched forward in his chair and leaned across the desk to tap his index finger on the page in question. "The date's right there at the top." His voice deepened, along with the lines of his face in a scowl. "March, 1922."

Though Mary's temper flared, she did her best to retain her air of composure-_Cold and careful Lady Mary Crawley_. The entire point of conducting this interview in her own home was to place herself on slightly more even terms with Richard by eliminating the advantage he always seemed to have on his own turf. She refused to be intimidated by him here, sitting at her father's desk.

She sat up straighter, arching her eyebrows at him. "Don't be cross at me. Be cross at Mr Crouch. He's the one who's been charging your tenants such low rents, and not always collecting them in full." Returning her gaze to the account books, she added, "Or at all."

"No wonder the Russells couldn't afford to keep Haxby." With a huff, Richard leaned against the back of his chair and started to rake his fingers through his hair, only to catch himself and smooth it back into place. He exhaled again, loudly, through his nostrils. "And no wonder I can't afford to get rid of it."

"Surely that's a relative term, for a man of your means?"

"I won't sell Haxby at a loss."

Mary shrugged. "Then you'll have to make the farms generate income, as well as rent. One doesn't have to read far into the accounts to see that the farmers are eking out livings for themselves with minimal benefit to you, the landowner."

The problem had appeared so obvious to her that at first she'd thought she must be viewing Haxby through the lens of Downton. It did not seem possible that Richard could be in nearly identical straits as Papa. Equally impossible was that she could misunderstand what was written so plainly in the ledgers.

"It must please you," Richard's brittle tones drew her gaze upward as he stood, "to see how spectacularly I've failed to be a country gentleman."

"I beg your pardon?"

"You were always so eager-you and your family-to point out that I was not, nor never would be, one of _your kind of people_. I knew it the moment you set eyes on me in that damned tweed suit."

He began to pace the room-prowling, catlike, as he had that other day in his office, but today Mary was no mouse.

Getting to her feet, she said, "We were quite agreed, weren't we, Sir Richard, not to discuss my family? If you can't hold up your end of the bargain, I'm afraid I cannot discuss farming with you."

She had run her fingers along the edge of the ledger as she spoke, and now slipped them beneath the cover to flip it shut. Richard stopped pacing, standing behind his chair, lips parted slightly as if to speak. He didn't, not even to make an apology. But he didn't argue, either. Mary would take what she could get.

Assured of her command of him, she said, more quietly, "Do you think I'd be helping you right now if I wasn't sorry you got stuck with a country house and twelve thousand acres you bought for me and never wanted yourself?"

Richard looked even more contrite, his gaze dropping to his hand on the back of the chair. Smothering a smirk, Mary resumed her place behind the desk.

"Then take a seat, and let me help you, "she said in what she hoped was a tone of brusque professionalism, and smoothed the creases from the front of her black skirt. "It's what you always wanted, isn't it? For me to help you learn to do things properly?"

He worked his jaw in that characteristic mannerism of vexation, but his husky tone belied a more raw emotion. "This isn't precisely the scenario I envisioned."

"Welcome to the club."

For a moment their gazes held, each acknowledging the disappointing trajectories the other's lives had taken, the tension between them breaking only when Richard lowered himself into his chair again, once more at eye level with her across the expanse of the desk.

"So," he said, curling his long fingers over the ends of the armrests, his authoritative posture juxtaposed with his next words, "how do you advise I save myself from Haxby?"

"I should think the obvious solution is to raise the rents."

"Doesn't that _obvious_ solution come with an obvious _problem_? How will tenant farmers who struggle to pay the current rents take having them raised-and by an absent landlord, no less? I deal with enough disgruntled senses of entitlement from my own employees."

"Alternatively, you could buy them out."

"Pay for what I already own?"

"It would be cheaper than losing money off land not being farmed properly. Buy out the tenants, raze the cottages, lease the land to be farmed properly. For profit. Why are you smiling?" Mary interrupted herself, noticing that Richard had relaxed against the back his chair, his chin tilting slightly upward, as did the corners of his mouth.

"Forgive me." He fidgeted in his chair, crossing one leg over the other, and she released the breath she'd been holding as his gaze flickered away-only to catch it again when his blue eyes snapped back to hers. "Only listen to yourself. You've a knack for business."

_I think very highly of _you, Richard had said, looking at her exactly like that, once upon a time when he proposed to her. Then, she had found it quite the let-down, indifferent and inspiring in her no wish to spend the next thirty years of her life as this man's wife, as Matthew's impulsive and impassioned proposal following their kiss in the dining room had. Now, she drew slow deep breaths to rein in the increasing tempo of her heart, but in vain. When heat prickled up from the collar of her black blouse along her jawline toward her cheeks, she glanced away.

"Or I've simply eavesdropped on men who do."

"How do you think the son of a Morningside printer and laundress learned how to become a millionaire? And I'll wager you're cleverer than any of those businessmen."

"You flatter me."

"Not at all. You know my opinion of-" Richard caught himself, even before Mary gave him a sharp look. "Of flattery."

His hand went back to tug at the curling ends of his hair above his collar, and Mary's smile sneaked through her pursed lips.

"This all sounds sensible to me," said Richard, sweeping his hand to indicate the account books as he sat forward in his chair again, "but of course my knowledge of farming is…scant. Where would I even begin?"

"By sacking your land agent. You have no scruples about that practice, I should think?"

Richard grinned. "If I do the firing, will you do the hiring? Unless of course you'd like to embark on a career yourself."

"Why do I have the impression you're not entirely joking?"

"Come now-do you want to be the only Crawley sister without a career?"

"If you know me at all, then you must realise how much I enjoy standing out."

Once that had been a good deal truer than it was now. Standing apart in her grief had driven her from Downton and village life. Even now, she felt conspicuous dressed in drab mourning garb-though less so in the company of Richard in his black pinstriped business suit than she did in other settings.

The clock in the hall chimed, and as Richard bent his head to check the silver watch draped across his waistcoat, murmuring that he must be getting back to the office, Mary thought an hour had not elapsed so quickly since last September. Perhaps there was something to having an occupation, after all.

"Talking of Lady Edith," Richard said as together they packed the ledgers into his briefcase, "I've been following her column."

"You subscribe to the _Sketch_?"

The brass closures of the briefcase snapped shut, and he regarded her incredulously. "I don't make a habit of subscribing to my competitors' publications. Josephine takes it."

Mary twitched her thumbs against the sides of her forefingers, unsure whether her annoyance was directed at Richard for mentioning his lady friend, or at herself for being annoyed at the mention of the jazz singer.

"I'm surprised you don't hold the women you court to your same standard."

"I courted you. At Downton, the _Times _is held as reverentially as the Bible. Anyway," Richard added, "I'm not precisely _courting _Josephine."

Mary didn't trouble herself to stop an eye roll, though she wished she had as she glimpsed the smug flash of a dimple as Richard turned to quit the study.

"You were saying about Edith?" she asked, sweeping past hum into the hall as he held the door for her. From the drawing room came muted sounds of Isobel and George imitating train whistles. "Or did you merely wish me to pass along your compliments? I'll warn you, we're not on the easiest of terms."

"Sibling rivalries-the one thing guaranteed in life never to change, no matter what tragedies life hurls our way?"

Mary winced, chastised, though not by Richard's words, which his thoughtful gaze indicated had not been uttered with the intent of wounding-or at least not of chiding her conscience. He could not know that on the morning Sybil died that Edith had asked whether they might live each other as sisters, only for Mary to rebuff her.

"Is your sister happy with her career?" asked Richard, sliding his arms into the sleeves of his greatcoat which Molesley scurried to bring. "Does she have plans for more ambitious work than writing for a ladies' journal, or is she content to work for Gregson?"

"I couldn't say. Do you have something in mind?"

"I might. Let her know, if terms improve, that I'd be happy to speak with her should she have any such aspirations."

She assured him she would try, but added, "It might be better coming directly from you. Edith's predisposed to think I'm passing judgment on her personal life."

At that moment, Isobel emerged from the drawing room, the brief falter of her cheerful greeting indicating she'd overheard Mary's words.

"Mrs Crawley." Richard said, and removed the trilby he'd just donned; in his grandmother's arms, George lunged for it. Chuckling, Richard placed it on the boy's head, and they all, Molesley included, laughed at the image of George, obscured to his slobbery chin in trilby, turning his head back and forth in owlish, silent confusion.

"Won't you stay for luncheon, Sir Richard?" Isobel asked. "You can see how much Georgie enjoys the train you so thoughtfully sent. Perhaps he'll reproduce the trick he learnt last night. Did Mary tell you he scooted on his tummy to try and catch the engine?"

"She did not."

Mary flushed at being found so remiss, though she'd always thought parents who boasted about their children's accomplishments as if every other baby in the course of human history had not achieved them were tiresome. Luckily Richard was preoccupied with rescuing his trilby as George yanked it off his head with both hands and pulled the felt brim toward his mouth.

"Clever lad," he said, without any indication that he thought the proud grandmother tiresome. "Although I'm afraid catching trains is hardly a necessary skill, given the perpetual lateness of the English railway. But I shall soon be tardy for an appointment myself, without the excuse of a late train," he added as the clock chimed the quarter-hour. "Thank you, Mrs Crawley, but I hope you'll extend a rain cheque."

Isobel nodded dubiously, and retreated with George to the drawing room, where she rang for Nanny Philips.

Molesley got the front door and Richard stepped through, but he turned back on the doorstep, running his fingers along the edge of the trilby he still had not put on, as though he were reluctant to go despite the looming engagement. And as his warm, callused fingers curled gently around hers to shake her hand, Mary discovered that she, too, was loath to say goodbye.

"So I can look forward to hearing from you when you've found me a suitable land agent?"

"You're looking forward to hearing from me? Some things _do_ change."

* * *

Yes, some things did change-but for a man whose life's purpose and current career were to bring it about, Tom Branson seemed unduly surprised when Mary rang him later that day, soliciting his advice about estate modernisation. He tried to hide it with teasing, but the pitch of curiosity beneath his lilting brogue carried across the two hundred miles of telephone lines between them as clearly as if they were in the same study together.

"Why do you want land agent recommendations? Has Lord Grantham asked you to look into replacing me?"

"As a matter of fact I'm doing exactly that for…a friend."

Instantly she regretted her slight hesitation over how to refer to Richard-_were _they friends?-as Tom, who never missed a detail nor resisted the lure of his inquisitiveness for long, seized on it.

"Not Mr Napier?"

Tom knew about Evelyn from her letters, both to him and the ones Mama no doubt shared with everyone in the family over tea, but she had omitted Richard even from her account of the dinner party. But she could not very well do so now, if they were to have a potential business connection, no matter how distant.

She cleared her throat and drew back her shoulders, imagining her brother-in-law standing in front of the desk, and dealt the truth to him as plainly and unapologetically as she had confronted him before about Sybil. "Sir Richard Carlisle."

A lengthy pause ensued before Tom said, "Your former fiancé?" He sounded nearly as surprised as he had by the initial inquiry which sparked her call.

"It isn't like that. And please keep your voice down." Mary scarcely spoke above a whisper herself as she cast a furtive glance at the study door, even though she knew perfectly well it was firmly shut. "He isn't exactly a favourite with Mama and Papa. Or Carson."

Tom chuckled. "Don't worry. There's no one about. And I don't know much about your family's opinions of Sir Richard. Though generally I find that if Lord Grantham dislikes a person, I ought to give them a chance."

Mary rolled her eyes at the dig at Papa; perhaps if she was going to be dealing often with her brother-in-law, she ought to hold him to the same promises as Richard. "Sybil didn't think much of him."

"That's because she thought you were marrying Sir Richard for his money and position. Her opinion improved slightly when he escorted you and Edith to Dublin for the wedding."

She'd never said, Mary thought. Never said so many things…Though on the subject of Richard, by the time she'd seen her little sister again, it had been the eve of her own wedding to Matthew. Her resentment of those months of separation roiled anew… The years of separation from Matthew…

"What about _your_ opinion?" she asked, abruptly returning to the matter at hand.

"Mine had been pretty well formed by a few interesting political exchanges as I drove Sir Richard to and from the train station."

Mary was glad not only for the distraction from her grief, but that Tom could not see her boggled expression at this bit of information. Richard had actually emerged from behind his newspapers to converse with the chauffeur? He hadn't even done that when he took the train down from London with Aunt Rosamund the first time. Then again, one could hardly blame a man for that.

"By _interesting_ I can only presume you mean _intense_, given your diametrically opposing views."

"On economics, yes. But I've nothing against a man _earning_ his wealth. We quite agree on matters of being _born_ into money and power, and of course there's the journalism connection. We both objected to the War-albeit for different reasons. And," he added after a pause, in a tone that perfectly conveyed to Mary that he was grinning on the other end of the line; she could almost see his blue eyes twinkling in that mischievous way she was sure must have appealed to Sybil's rebellious streak, "there was that personal opinion we held in common, that the other would be the son-in-law Lord Grantham would dislike the most."

"The basis of a solid friendship," said Mary with a laugh.

"We'd might have been bosom pals if we'd only been able to overcome our differences about the superiority of whisky over Scotch. By Sir Richard recognising whisky's superiority, of course."

"You never know…He and I seem to be overcoming our differences about a great many matters." _Such as blackmail._

Of course Richard had always believed they were more alike than Mary would own to. Was he right? And if he was, could that possibly be a good thing?

"Please, Tom," she spoke low into the receiver, cupping the earpiece hard against the side of her head, "don't mention a word of any of this to Mama and Papa. They wouldn't understand why I'm doing it. I'm not entirely sure I do."

When had she regressed to the time in her life when she conspired against her parents? She wasn't thirteen anymore…In fact, next month she would be thirty, she realised with some surprise.

"Does Matthew's mother understand?" asked Tom.

Why he couldn't have called her _Mrs Crawley _instead of referring to her as _Matthew's mother _made Mary's stomach coil tight as the knot she had not realized she was twisting in the telephone cord. Was his wording intentional? If so, it may have been for the best, reminding her that her choices did not affect her alone, but she clenched her jaw.

"Isobel accepts that I must have an occupation."

Though she remembered the anxiety with which Isobel had asked whether Richard was courting her, and the appearance of relief when he could not accept this morning's impromptu luncheon invitation.

"You'll get no judgment from me," Tom said. "After all I'm an Irish Republican now managing the ancient seat of an English earl." He must have spat the words, because the earpiece crackled with static, but he went on in a gentler tone. "We've lost the people we love most in the world, apart from Sybbie and George. We've got lives to rebuild, and we've got to start somewhere."

Mary wished she could speak aloud how immense was her gratitude that Tom understood what she felt, what she needed, but all she could manage was a nod, which he of course could not see, as she set the microphone on the corner of the desk and clasped her hand over her mouth to stifle a sob. Though her comfort was that Tom must also know that without her having to say-most ironically, given the new thoughts that had begun to plague her nights.

"Though if Carlisle ever makes you uncomfortable," Tom said, the spirit coming back into his voice, "remember I've got rough friends."

Laughing as she wiped away her tears, Mary took up the mouthpiece once again. "The question, Tom," she said, "is whether you've got any fellow land agents who are rough enough to suit Sir Richard?"


	8. Unfinished Business

**_A/N: As always, I am so grateful for the continued support and enthusiasm of my faithful readers, and malintzin, who is essentially the land agent to my Haxby Park. ;)  
_**

* * *

**_May_,**_** 1922**_

**8. Unfinished Business**

Within days of their conversation, Tom contacted Mary about a Mr Stephen Battle whom he thought would meet Sir Richard's requirements for a land agent. However, Richard's schedule would not readily accommodate an interview with the man.

"I thought getting Haxby off your hands was a matter of urgency?" Mary sniped at him over the phone, vexed at first by his lack of immediacy, and then at herself for being vexed. Why should it be any concern of hers when Richard dealt with his estate?

Of course he'd responded in kind: "You may recall I have a career of my own, which keeps me more than sufficiently occupied without doing the job of another man." He added, more pleasantly, "I like his name, though. _Battle_. That's promising."

"Mm. Or perhaps Tom's idea of a joke."

"How so?"

Mary cast about for an explanation that did not involve the truth which she had almost revealed to him, of Tom's remark about having rough friends.

"An Irish revolutionary putting forth a candidate called _Battle_? Even you can't miss the humour in that." Over his protest, she added, "Or it could be ironic. Mr Battle may turn out to be meek as a lamb."

Indeed, the latter seemed likely to prove the case when Mary first laid eyes on him nearly a fortnight later, as Miss Fields showed him into Richard's office: a man of already inconsequential stature, who leaned heavily on a cane and thumped along on an artificial leg.

But after seeing Mr Battle out after the interview, saying he would be in touch within the next day or two, Richard sauntered back into the office, rubbing his palms together and smirking at Mary, who stood at the corner of his desk. "More like a wolf in sheep's clothing."

"A quality only you would find desirable in a prospective employee," she said, and when his grin stretched, apparently pleased with this assessment, she couldn't stop a smile of her own. "I'm surprised you didn't hire him on the spot."

"I was tempted." Richard stepped nearer to her, slipping his hands into his trouser pockets. "I thought it prudent to talk it over with you first."

"Oh." Mary schooled her face not to show how pleased _she _was by his compliment. "Well. I thought-"

Richard held up a hand. "Over luncheon, perhaps? I owe you. For the last time we…" His eyes darted away from hers, and he flexed his jaw. "…did business together."

_I thought it was me who was indebted_, Mary thought, but did not say. "The circumstances were…rather different."

"Indeed. Never mind. It was a stupid idea."

"I'd like to, Richard, really I would, but I couldn't be seen out with you."

"Certainly not," he said, meeting her gaze again, relief washing the lines from his sharp features. "That's why I took the liberty of having food brought in."

Mary did not manage to squelch a snort of laughter.

"What?"

"Do you have an employee whose sole job is to do things of that sort? Edith believes so."

Richard rubbed his fingers over the curling hair above his collar, but his self-consciousness, for once, did not get the better of his temper. "You and Edith talked about me?"

His eyes flashed, and so did a dimple as one corner of his mouth curved upward. He was appallingly smug, and Mary shook her head as she turned to pick up the telephone receiver.

"I'll just ring Mrs Crawley and let her know I'll be later than expected, if you don't mind."

He did not, but Isobel acquiesced to the change of plan with some reticence. "Of course, my dear, if you must. Only..."

"Yes?"

"George was taking his morning nap when you came down to breakfast, and Nanny will have put him to bed for the afternoon by the time you've had your luncheon."

Mary flushed at that, but she was conscious of Richard lingering in the doorway to the room adjoining his office and kept her tone glib. "Perhaps someone ought to speak to him about how it's common practice to sleep at night and be awake during the day."

She put down the receiver with rather more force than she meant to, belying her mood; as she swept past Richard, he caught her elbow, gently, and looked down at her, searching her gaze. Mary averted her eyes, dropping them to her sleeve and the way his long fingers curled lightly around it, pale against the black, his thumb stroking lightly over her forearm. Her brain told her she ought to pull away, but her body would not comply. Richard's warmth penetrated the fabric, and his voice rumbled through her when he spoke low.

"If you're required at home we can do lunch another time."

"Thank you, Richard. I'm not." She turned her head, taking in the sight of a tea table draped with a white cloth and a decorated with a bowl of hydrangeas. "It would be a shame to let this lovely meal go to waste."

The tips of his fingers remained at her elbow as he escorted her to the table; when he seated her, his hands brushed the sides of her shoulders.

"Are we celebrating?" Mary asked, her eye passing over the green salad and sea bass and alighting on the bottle of champagne Richard picked up as he stepped around the table to his place.

"That's up to you," he replied, uncorking it. "Do you think I should hire Mr Battle?"

She thanked him for the champagne he handed her, sipping after she swallowed a bite of salad. "My only concern is his leg. Overseeing twelve thousand acres will require a deal of riding or driving."

"He says he can manage."

"_He _says."

Leaning back in his chair, Richard regarded her over his glass, eyes bright with the same look of admiration Mary had seen when she looked over his accounts in Papa's office. "Can youfind the time to check that his references say the same?"

"If you need me to."

"I do. You're so much more charming on the phone than I am."

"Except it's not you and I who must be charming in such a situation, is it?"

Their eyes met across the table, and they shared a quiet laugh. After the sound faded their gazes held, until Mary felt a prickle at her cheeks and saw the Adam's apple bob down into Richard's starched collar. He cleared his throat and averted his attention to his sea bass, and they ate in silence for what seemed like a long time.

At length, Richard said, "If you like what his references have to say, I'll make him an offer. Mr Battle's experience will, I think, be very useful."

He talked on, but Mary only half-listened as most of it was a reiteration of the interview. Stephen Battle was the son of a land agent and, though he had not followed in his father's profession prior to the War, the loss of his leg andthe failure of so many estates made a return to his roots prudent. He'd worked as an itinerant agent, traveling throughout the countryside and pulling a number of estates from the brink of financial ruin to sell to tycoons who could afford them; the only one he had not saved he claimed was due to the owner's refusal to make the necessary changes. At one point, it had seemed that Mr Battle was interviewing Richard for the position of employer rather than the other way around.

"Mary?"

"Hm?"

"Isn't the sea bass to your liking?"

Her eyes darted to Richard's plate, the last bite of the bass on his fork. "Yes of course." He'd remembered it was her favourite luncheon food.

"You were pushing it around on your plate."

Mary speared a bit and brought it to her mouth, but sighed without taking a bite and laid her fork back on her plate, pulling her hands into her lap beneath the tablecloth.

"A number of the old country houses seem to be similarly afflicted. I suspected as much when I looked over Haxby's accounts that the situation was much like Downton's, and Mr Branson confirmed it. So it wasn't…"

She looked down at her hands and saw that her right thumb twisted the wedding band on her fourth finger so hard that the diamond of the engagement ring left an imprint on the pad. She curled her fingers into fists and held them still on her skirt.

"Papa truly did not manage it so terribly as I believed."

As Richard drained his champagne glass he looked out the row of windows that lined one wall, framed in green curtains and sharing the same view as his office. St Paul's rose above the rooftops of the Fleet Street newspaper buildings, towers of smoke chuffing from chimneys as the presses printed the evening editions. He slipped his hand inside his jacket, as if reaching into his pocket, only to withdraw it again, still empty.

"It's moments like this I wish I hadn't given up smoking." He looked at Mary, briefly, before becoming interested in the drop of champagne at the bottom of his glass as he tilted it on its stem. "You needn't feel you must redeem Lord Grantham in my eyes. His incompetence with regard to Downton is the least of the issues I take with him. In any case, I ought never to have spoken unfavourably of him to you."

Mary shook her head. "It's not what you said. _Matthew_ was very quick to lay all the blame on Papa's shoulders. I suppose it's understandable. The blunder with Mama's fortune _was _entirely his fault. But..."

She thought of what she and Tom had discussed, in addition to land agents-Tom Branson, Socialist, Republican, making allowances for a member of the Establishment.

"Papa only managed the estate as he was raised to. As his father was raised to. As generations before him were raised to. Now that I know this I'm surprised Mathew came down so hard on Papa. He dealt with him more like-"

_More like _you _would_, she nearly blurted out, but caught herself in time. Her stomach twisted into a knot when she remembered how he'd said, _You're on my team now_. As if the future Earl were at odds with his predecessor. Forcing the future Countess to pick a side. And hadn't that been the centre of their dispute before the wedding? _You're not on our side! _she'd flung at him. Hadn't marriage to Matthew been meant to bring her and her family together?

"I never would have expected that from him, before the War."

Up until this point, Richard had been listening with an expression of bland interest, his head tilted slightly, but now he held it upright as his eyebrows lifted on his forehead. "What has the War to do with it?"

She was twisting her ring again. Did she really want to discuss this topic with Richard, of all people?

Then again, of all the people she knew, even those she loved best, Richard was the only one she could count on to be completely honest with her.

She took a fortifying drink of champagne and cringed; its sweetness was a good compliment for the meal but not the conversation.

"I presume war is one of those subjects for which feminine sensibilities are too fragile, and reserved for the men over port and cigars?"

"Generally-but do you imagine Lord Grantham and Captain Crawley were keen to discuss it with a known opponent?"

A valid point; Mary's cheeks warmed as she remembered how Granny and Papa blustered about the opinions he'd ventured to voice during that first weekend: _He's not even patriotic!_

"My friend Mr Napier has expressed views not dissimilar to yours," she said, feeling as if she ought to atone for the embarrassment she'd allowed herself to feel that he was not in uniform-though when they met at Cliveden she'd told him what a relief it was to see white ties and tails instead of redcoats for once. "He served in the cavalry."

"But they are dissimilar to your husband's?"

That was Richard, with his newspaperman's talent for cutting through the superfluity to get to the heart of a matter.

"I wouldn't know," Mary answered. "He never talked about it."

Her heart seemed to hang suspended in the breathless cavern of her chest as Richard studied her, and she tried to keep her face as inscrutable as his was. If he read anything on her features he gave no indication of it. After a moment be pushed back from the table, laid his serviette in the seat of his chair, and strode to the door which led to the anteroom of his offices. She heard him request that their plates be taken away and dessert brought, and as he resumed his place a young woman dressed in smart navy blue-not a maid, but probably one of the junior secretaries-efficiently did his bidding, replacing Mary's untouched sea bass with a slice of lemon tart for which she still had no appetite.

When the girl had gone Richard refilled their champagne glasses, taking a drink before he sliced into his tart with the edge of his fork.

"There's never been a war like the one just fought," he said, "so I couldn't presume to speak to what is considered _normal_ behaviour for our boys who braved the trenches."

Mary had taken a bite of lemon tart to be polite, but the sweetness of it was diminished slightly by the hint of bitterness with which Richard pronounced the last.

"From what I gather," he went on, pausing to chew, "there is no normal. Some of them volunteered to fight, others were made to. Regardless of how they left, none of them came back the same. And I don't refer only to loss of limb or disfigurement. You remember that footman employed at Downton on my first visit?"

"Lang. He was a valet. He spilled soup all over Edith's dress."

"No doubt because he was shell shocked."

"Papa dismissed him because he wasn't up to the job."

"I won't fault him there, as I've had to let a few such cases go myself. Shell shock victims can be a danger to themselves, as well as to others. I'd rather not see my warehouse become the site of more War casualties because insomnia led to improper operation of the machinery, or the noise of the printing presses sent them into hysterics or worse."

"Mr Napier can't be around horses," Mary said. "Racing and riding were his life before."

"As I said, there is no normal."

Mary felt a little light-headed; she told herself it was the champagne on her relatively empty stomach, and not fragile feminine sensibilities. Though how anybody, female or otherwise, could talk about such things and not be affected, she could not imagine.

Perhaps that was why Matthew didn't.

"You must thank God you were in a position to spare your brother being called up," she said. "If you believed in God."

"Indeed. But we seem to have strayed from the topic," Richard said, crossing one leg over the other. "You think Captain Crawley suffered more than temporary paralysis, is that it?"

"I'm hardly qualified to say."

"Why? Because he didn't handle Lord Grantham's feelings with kid gloves?" His cheek muscle twitched, as if in the start of a smile. "I daresay the War jolly well _did _change him. He was an officer, for Pete's sake. Probably got accustomed to giving orders and having them obeyed without question. I rather relate to that myself."

He chuckled, but Mary silenced him with a look.

"I think I know my husband better than you," she said. "And yes, I am afraid he may have suffered more than he let on."

"I never knew you and him to have difficulty communicating."

_It was late…and you two were locked together in the corner of the room_, Richard's voice hissed from the recesses of her memory, and Mary retorted, as she had not that dreadful night more than two years before, "Unlike you and me? You were always _marvellous _at saying what you felt."

"I shouldn't have said that." Richard glanced away. "No digs at your husband, that was the agreement."

"No. You shouldn't. You ought to have told me you loved me before the end. You who can be called many things, but not a liar."

The words flew from her lips without having first formed in her mind, and as Mary heard them she pressed her fingertips to her mouth as if by doing so she could draw them back. It was too late. They had found Richard's ears, too. His face went very pale.

"There was another agreement, wasn't there?" he said. "Not to talk about our past?"

Mary swivelled in her chair, heedless of the serviette fluttering to the floor from her lap like an autumn leaf as she stood and turned her back to Richard and the luncheon table.

"I didn't mean to," she said, drawing her hand from her mouth just enough so that her speech would not be muffled, the tips of her fingers still touching her bottom lip. "This isn't about us. Or you."

"Isn't it?" The legs of Richard's chair scraped on the floor, and the soles of his shoes were ponderous with his slow stride toward her. "In any case you're right. I ought to have told you how I really felt much sooner than I did. And we should have talked about why I didn't before now."

_If he could just admit the truth, all four of us might have a chance._ Lavinia, too, had found Matthew's communication lacking, though Mary was not about to return down that dark path he had led her to feeling culpable for that young woman's sorrow and death. Thankfully, Richard was there to draw her back to present concerns-as he had been the horrible day they'd laid the poor girl to rest.

"But surely you already know the answer, Mary?"

She could feel the thud of her heart. "Because you knew I didn't love you."

"Right on the mark," said Richard, his voice low and hoarse. "If our feelings were unequal then _we _couldn't be equals. You'd have had an advantage."

So he'd kept the truth from her. Pretending that love was not a necessary ingredient for a good marriage, or hoping that she might grow to love him. Either way, he had sold at a loss.

"Would it have made any difference? If I had told you?"

"I couldn't have come to love you. Not so long as Matthew Crawley walked the earth."

"Thank you," he said quietly. "I appreciate your honesty."

Mary turned to him. "I didn't answer your question entirely."

_Might _it have made a difference? No church bells would have chimed in honour of Sir Richard and Lady Mary Carlisle, of that she was certain. But she'd meant it when she apologised to him for using him, and she wanted to believe that she wasn't so mercenary as to use a man who could actually be hurt by her. That she had learned something from the mistakes she'd made with Matthew all those years ago.

"If you'd told me you loved me," she said, "you wouldn't be trying to sell Haxby Park."


	9. Mothers and Daughters

**_A/N: My apologies for the delay between updates. Summer always seems to be the busiest time of year for me. I'll try to be more prompt in the future, though. As always, thanks to malintzin for brainstorming and beta-reading.  
_**

* * *

**9. Mothers and Daughters**

The toy locomotive chugged round and round its track on the Persian rug, hypnotising Mary as she watched. At some point she realised that the floor wasn't covered by carpet at all, but by manicured sun-dappled grass, wide stripes of alternating light and dark green cast by the morning light that beamed through the windowpanes; in place of the coffee table the train track looped a sprawling neo-renaissance château.

"You _would _give my son a miniature of Haxby," she remarked to Richard, whom she had not until now observed standing at her side.

"Miniature?" he said. "I think, my dear, you'll find it's we who appear miniature compared to the house and the twelve thousand acres on which it stands."

She looked around, then, and saw that the walls of the Grantham House drawing room had vanished, and she stood on the gravel drive that cut up the centre of Haxby Park. In the distance she heard the thunder of the train. How? Haxby wasn't situated near the railway. She started to ask Richard whether this was one of his improvements to the estate, and whether he'd found a way to make the trains run on time while he was at it, when Stephen Battle caught her eye, stumping across the grass on his artificial leg.

Mary waved to him, but he took no heed of her. The train rounded the corner of the house, screeching to a halt as if it had pulled into the station. As she watched the land agent hook the handle of his cane over a window to give himself a boost into the engine, she felt the weight of Richard's hand come to rest in the curve of her waist, his long fingers curling possessively over her hipbone.

"So." His chin nudged against her temple, and his breath tickled as he leaned in to murmur in her ear. "Shall we rescue him?"

Mary looked at him over her shoulder. "Rescue _him_?"

Richard's reply was swallowed up by another shriek of the train whistle, but as they both turned to watch it depart in a blast of shrouding steam, Mary repeated at a whisper, "_Rescue him_."

Her heart clattered behind her ribcage in time with the train's acceleration down the track, lodging in her throat to choke her scream as she saw Matthew racing the AC Six up the drive toward the house.

Toward the train.

"We must rescue him!" She lurched toward him, but Richard's hand at her waist gripped her painfully, restraining her.

"You have to let him go," he said as she struggled, helpless as he snaked his other arm around her, too. She felt him at her back, stolid as a wall. "Let him go, Mary."

"No, I can't!"

"You _can_. You're strong and sharp…"

So was his hold on her, clamped around her stomach like a vice. Mary looked down with the intent of grasping his big hands and prying them off her, only to realise the only pair there were her own, pressed to the swell of her child with in her; the pangs that tore through her were not caused by Richard at all, but by labour contractions.

"You're strong," said a voice-not Richard's any longer, but Isobel's, at her bedside in the village hospital. She gave Mary a hand to hold as she bore down with the pains. "You can do it, my dear. You must. For your child. _For_ _Matthew_."

The Six careered toward the train, though Mary could not see the crash for the lightning bolt of pain that ripped up and down her body from its source at her belly. She heard it, though, and when she came blinking out of the white flash she found herself sitting upright in a four-poster bed, shivering in her sweat-soaked nightdress as rain spattered against her windows, the panes rattled by distant thunder.

For a moment she sat, until she had caught her breath and her heart had returned to a less alarmed tempo. When another flicker of lightning illuminated the side of the bed where the sheets lay smooth, un-rumpled by another sleeper, she disentangled herself from the covers and swung her legs over the edge of the mattress. Her room was so dark that she expected to twitch back the drapes and see the streetlamps reflected in the puddles on the pavement and the silhouettes of the row houses still, peppered here or there with a lit window where some neighbour also remained wakeful in the middle of the night, or a party continued late. Instead, the grey light of a sun risen high behind the wall of storm clouds revealed pedestrians clad in wellington boots and armed with umbrellas dodging splashes from the automobiles that rolled down Hanover Square.

Returning to her bed, she flicked on the lamp on the nightstand and saw that the clock read half ten. Wearily she sank down upon the edge of the mattress, back to the expanse of the bed, and rubbed the sleep from her eyes. She always had been a late riser-as a bride, she'd revelled in the privilege afforded to a married woman to lie-in and take her breakfast in bed-in the days when she could sleep. Well-she slept last night. For all the good it did her.

Suddenly her damp hair and nightdress became unbearable to her, not only for the physical discomfort but for the reminder they presented of her dream-such a silly thing, in retrospect, to have been so affected by-that she leapt from her bed again, bolted for the bathroom across the hall, stripped off the gown, and ran a bath before the maid she'd rung for even arrived to assist her. Her relief at freshening up was only temporary, however, when she was greeted downstairs by the noise of the toy train running around its track in the drawing room. Overcoming the temptation to go directly to the breakfast room rather than greet her child and mother-in-law, Mary slipped inside. Isobel sat at the writing desk, answering the morning's correspondence, and so did not see or Mary go in until George emitted a loud protest when she bent to switch off the train.

"We really ought to consider moving the Grantham House Railway to the nursery," Mary said, plucking her son off the floor; he stopped howling about the train and clutched at her pearl pendant instead.

"Oh I don't know," said Isobel with a smile as she got up, "I thought it might prove amusing should we have another dinner party. A nice change from bridge."

"Some people say things like that, and I'm sure they're joking."

Though Isobel continued to smile, Mary noted the subtle shift of her features, the concerned scrutiny that etched itself a little deeper in the crinkles at the corners of her eyes.

"I'm glad you had a lie-in," said Isobel.

Mary did not know how to reply to this; she was spared having to by George grinning and declaring, "Da-da-da-da-da!"

Her face must have registered something of astonishment, because Isobel's expression faltered. "I'll ring Molesley to see to your breakfast," she said, returning to her desk to press the bell. "Oh-and a letter came from Cora in the morning post."

As Mary shifted George in her arms to take the letter from her mother-in-law and slip it into her pocket to read later in private, he said let out another stream of, "Da-da-da-da-da!"

"Heavens," said Mary. "Do you suppose I ought to put that down in his baby book as his first word?"

"It's not a word so much as a vocalisation, I daresay. He has no context for it."

Mary heard the quaver in Isobel's voice, and the hitch in her own as she replied, "Indeed."

She set George on his chenille blanket by the toy railway and switched it on again, hoping that would be the end of it. But Isobel never could leave well enough alone-a quality which, Mary must own, was partially responsible for their marriage having taken place at all.

"I believe it's quite normal for babies to say _da-da _before _ma-ma_."

"It hardly seems fair, does it? That this should be the case even when have _only_ a mama?"

She had never thought Molesley, with his greasy side-swept hair and sycophantic demeanour, could be a welcome sight, but when he bobbed through the drawing room door Mary could have kissed him in relief.

"Will your ladyship take your breakfast here with Mrs Crawley and Master George?"

"Tea in the study, if you please. Will you be needing the phone this morning, Isobel? I have to check references for the land agent Sir Richard and I interviewed yesterday."

In the pause before Isobel replied, Mary realised how domestic that sounded. More so, in fact, than anything she'd said with regard to Richard and herself during their engagement. Did Isobel think the same thing? The image from her dream, of standing with him in front of Haxby, appeared at the front of her mind; she could almost feel his hand slot into the curve of her waist. She blinked, and found herself looking into Isobel's polite smile instead.

"I haven't had a chance to ask how your meeting went." She'd been out of the house when Mary returned, doing her parish work.

"Obviously it was most productive."

"And luncheon?"

"Sir Richard had sea bass brought in from Fortnum's. Not quite the Ritz, but still amusing in light of Edith's little joke."

She went to the study, then, leaning against the door for a moment after she shut it, appreciating the refuge of rich walnut panelled walls and the steady fall of rain. Tea awaited her on the desk, along with the file Richard sent home with her, containing Mr Battle's reference list and their notes from the interview, but a crinkle in her skirt as she sat reminded her of Mama's letter.

_My darling Mary_, it began.

_Whenever I read your letters, I always feel I'm actually in London, enjoying the excitement of town right along with you.__Of course they also make me very anxious to come up. I haven't wanted to do the season so since Sybil came out. Rose is twenty now, and Susan writes to get her a husband if we can. Your father says there's no urgency, that things _are_ different now than they were when you girls were debs, that I can't relive the past, and I suppose he's right. And I quite agree with him that if you still need to be apart for a little while longer, we don't want to impose on you and Isobel and the time you need to heal._

_But I do miss you so terribly, my dear, and little Georgie. He must be so changed. Isobel writes that he scoots proficiently, and will be crawling before we know it._

The letter went on, but Mary lay the stationery on the desk. She passed a hand over her eyes, smarting from squinting at Mama's spidery script in the yellow light of the electric desk lamp, and with the pad of thumb and middle finger massaged her temples, which pulsed with the drumming of the rain in the gutter. _Isobel writes_…

Mary read on. Mama expressed the approval present in all her most letters that Mary had reached out to Edith, inquiring whether she seemed happy with her work and with Mr Gregson, requesting that whenever Mary saw her again to pass along her love-and Papa's, though of course Mary had not breathed a word to him of Mary's forbidden association with her sister.

It was what Mama did not say that spoke plainest amidst the effusion of maternal longings: she wanted to go back, to a time when their concerns were more trivial, when she had more control over her daughters' lives. Papa, on the other hand, despite his fear and loathing of the future, couldn't bear facing a past that was not quite what it had been. London life had never suited him in the best of times, and Mary suspected he now found nothing there but painful reminders of all that had been lost. When she told him she wanted to get away from Downton he'd been surprisingly understanding, but he'd also discouraged her from London. She would see more of the ravages of the War there, he'd said-as if the young men who'd come back and seemed to collect in the city, blind, crippled, disfigured, or with scars not visible on the outside, were somehow more to be pitiedthan those who remained only as names etched on stone in churchyards.

Was that what he would think of poor old Evelyn, chain smoking away the evenings at Murray's? Was that what Evelyn's own father thought of him? Or did Papa understand more than Mary gave him credit for?

He'd fought a war, too. It wasn't often that she thought of the Second Boer War, or of the two years he was absent from her childhood but for brief furloughs home, and she'd asked about it even less. Before she could think what she was doing, or talk herself out of it, she picked up the telephone and asked the operator to put her through to Downton Abbey.

Carson answered-of course he did-but his sonorous baritone, richer than usual with gladness at hearing her voice, nevertheless took Mary by surprise; her throat tightened with a sob so that she was relieved when he put down the receiver and went to fetch her mother, and in the interim homesickness clutched her stomach so tightly that she almost made up her mind to go home at once. Thankfully, the unbridled emotion inMama's greeting as it crackled through the earpiece helped Mary to rein in her own.

"I just read your letter," she said. "I was going to write back, but as I was sitting by the telephone anyway so it seemed easier to call."

"I'm glad you did," Mama replied. "It's wonderful to hear your voice-now please just let me hear your voice say you want us to come." She didn't give Mary a chance to say so or not, her words tumbling out as if they'd built up in the weeks of her daughter's absence. "Oh, Mary, I haven't been able to stop myself making plans for the summer. We should do something really special for your thirtieth birthday. And Sybbie will turn _two _in June, can you believe it?"

_Two years since Sybil died_. The unspoken words hung between them in the pause.

Sybbie's first birthday last summer had been a subdued affair at Downton, the grief that had only just begun to dull following the young mother's death returning in force and strangulating the joy everyone had done their utmost to summon for the sake of the child. Mary's hand had found its way to her own increasing middle more frequently than before, fear mingled with grief that this might be _her_ baby's first birthday. Never once had it occurred to her that the parent who would have their child's birthdate carved in a headstone might not be the one who brought it into the world.

"A change of scenery might do Tom some good, too," Mama went on, a little choked, but she pushed the hoarseness from her voice by the force of will Mary had observed so many times in the past two years. "We could have such fun throwing a little party for Sybbie in town. Maybe a real girls' day out with Auntie Mary."

"Do you think she'd like a toy train set?" Mary muttered.

"What? Oh, I suppose I could ask Tom…"

"Never mind. Mama, I'm terribly sorry to throw a damper on your plans, but they're not actually why I phoned. As I said, I only just read your letter, and I'd have to discuss it with Isobel."

"Oh. Of course. And I don't mean to pressure you, dear." Mama audibly deflated, but Mary pictured her concentrated effort to maintain her ebullience in the face of disappointment and wondered if the lifetime of judging her mother's expressive face as an open book of American emotions hadn't been a little unfair; perhaps Mama, more than any of them with their cold, careful English composure, demonstrated the true art of keeping a stiff upper lip. "What _do_ you want to talk about?"

Mary wavered; was it right to ask her mother a favour after getting her hopes up and then dashing them? She picked up her teacup, cringing as she tasted that it had gone tepid.

"I wanted to ask you something about Papa."

"What about him?" The genuine curiosity in Mama's voice dissipated some of Mary's guilt.

"The Boer War. Did he ever talk about it to you?" The crackle on the telephone line might have been static, or Mama spluttering. In either case, or both, Mary added, "I'm sure that was the last thing you expected me to ask."

"Well…yes. You've never shown an interest before."

"I _was _barely ten," Mary retorted, though she heard echoes of Edith and herself arguing that many years later: _Don't you ever read the papers?...I'm too busy living a life. _

How much had she missed, living this life of hers-such as it was? Perhaps she might have more to show for it, if she'd paid a little more attention.

"I'm afraid I don't have much that will satisfy your curiosity," Mama said. "You know your father. He's not one to lay a man's burden on a lady's delicate shoulders."

Mary _hmm_ed her agreement-though she recalled Matthew not _wanting _ to talk about what he'd seen on the front; perhaps that was what Papa really meant by his chivalry. In any case, it was why she hadn't asked to speak to him. Still, she wasn't ready to let the subject go, now she'd broached it. She tightened her grip around the stick telephone and leaned forward in her chair to speak into the mouthpiece.

"When he returned from South Africa, did you notice…did he seem different to you, at all?"

"He was very affectionate, but that's understandable following a lengthy separation." Mama laughed a little, and Mary rolled her eyes, but then Mama added in a more serious tone, almost more to herself than to her daughter. "Come to think of it, he never slept in his dressing room after that. Except during my monthly indispositions."

"Thank you, Mama, you've been so terribly helpful." Even deadpanned, the words themselves were harsher than her mother deserved; Mary leaned her elbow on the desk and her forehead against her hand, rubbing the ache, feeling a bit like a private eye whose lead had turned out to be nothing at all.

"I'm sorry, Mary, it was just so very long ago…I hardly think about this times. He didn't sleep well, at first," she offered, voice lilting upward at the end, almost as if to ask, _Is that what you'd like me to say?_

Mary raised her head. "_Couldn't_ sleep, or…?"

"Some nightmares. He never would say what about. I suppose one does see rather nightmarish images at war. Everything returned to normal very quickly, though. He had Downton and his three beautiful daughters."

"And his devoted wife."

Sighing, Mary rose from her chair, telephone in hand, to peer out the window behind the desk. The rain had stopped, and now a hundred rainbows refracted in the drops that clung shivering to the glass as the sun peeked out from behind the clouds. It sounded so very much like the way things were for her and Matthew: the storm had passed, lingering only as the occasional half-remembered unpleasant dream. And yet…Thunder rumbled faintly in the distance.

How did one account for men like Evelyn, for whom the nightmare did not seem to end? Mama was not always the most astute observer and-like herself, she realised-tended to insulate herself from the affairs of the larger world for those within the realm of her immediate concern. _The Countess of Grantham lives in Downton Abbey. _

"I suppose he never expressed any…regrets?" Mary said into the microphone. "About what the fighting was for?"

"No. He was all King and Country."

"Queen, for most of that time," Mary quipped, then added, with all sincerity, "Thank you, Mama, then added, with all sincerity. "Thank you, Mama. You _have _been helpful."

"Of course, my darling," Mama replied, and Mary smiled, hearing the indulgent smile in her tone, the gentleness that was almost like a caress of cool soft fingers on her cheek. Just as clearly she saw the expression fall away, the corners of her eyes and mouth etching her concern as she asked, "May I ask _you_ something? What's brought all this on?"

Mary's heart missed a beat. "Why, I-"

"Is it the time you've spent with Mr Napier? Dr Clarkson's told us about young men coping with troubles quite unlike ones he's treated before. The Great War was a different War than the one your father fought. Than any man fought. Poor Evelyn. I think it's wonderful you're being a friend to him, especially given how he felt about you in the past, but I hope…I hope you're not attempting to carry his burden in addition to your own. You need to look after yourself. For Georgie's sake."

While Mary could not deny that perhaps her association with Evelyn had stirred up notions that might otherwise never have occurred to her, she could not of course say so to Mama.

"Don't worry. He seems to have found a more empathetic friend in Edith than in me."

"Oh?"

Even across two hundred miles of telephone lines, Mary heard the unmistakable hope in that single syllable.

"A subject for another day," she replied, glancing at the clock on the desk. Other people's burdens, at least, distracted from one's own, and the file open on the desk before her represented the burden Richard was shouldering in the form of one hundred rooms on twelve thousand acres.

After Mama had obtained Mary's promise that they would speak again soon, she hung up the phone, only to pick it up again and spend the next three quarters of an hour making reference calls for Richard, until it was time to get properly dressed for the next item on her day's agenda.

While Molesley helped her into her coat in the front hall, she met Isobel coming down the stairs.

"Oh-are you going out?"

"Did I forget to tell you?" said Mary, turning to check the angle of her hat in the mirror. As she did so, she noticed a shine on her nose and took out her compact from the black handbag looped over her elbow and dabbed powder over it. "I'm meeting Edith for luncheon and a little shopping."

"How lovely. Although…I was just checking on Georgie. He's sleeping still, but he should be up from his morning nap very soon. Why doesn't Edith come here, so she can see him again?"

In the mirror, Mary caught Isobel's eye over her shoulder, and read the unspoken message: _Why don't you stay home with him?_

"Perhaps because she feels unwelcome." Mary's words were punctuated by the snap of her compact. "And judged."

She slipped the compact into her purse and stepped through the door Molesley held opened for her without another glance at her speechless mother-in-law.

* * *

For more than a decade, Selfridges department store had been famous for featuring curiositiespreviously un-experienced by the modern shopper. Certainly Mary had never expected that _she_ might be one of them; following Edith through the ladies' clothing department, watching her formerly dowdy sister move with ease among the mannequins and racks, talking about the latest trends in hemlines and colour palettes and what her friends in Bloomsbury were wearing-she dropped names like Vanessa and Virginia, Dora and Karin as if they were supposed to mean something to Mary, though Lady Ottoline rang a bell, at least-selecting blouses and skirts and dresses almost carelessly, handing them off to sales girls with whom she was on a first name basis, Mary herself felt conspicuous in her staid black suit which fell decidedly past the stylish mid-calf worn by most of the other female patrons, her black hat simply adorned with grosgrain and a feather.

"I don't expect Lady Duff Gordon, of course," she said, "but doesn't Mr Gregson pay you well enough to afford a dressmaker? Or Harrod's, at least?"

Edith sighed. "I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt, and assume this isn't really about you being such a horrid snob as being frustrated with having to dress in mourning."

Mary gawped at her, uncertain whether to be pleased at her sister's newfound astuteness or displeased with her own transparency. _Does this mean I'll have to go into full mourning? _she heard her twenty year-old self ask Papa, whose look of shock and sadness would never leave her. At least she did not see that expression mirrored on Edith's face now, as she selected a lavender dress with pointed collar, cuffs, and low-slung sash in deep plum, two lines of matching buttons marching down the bodice to the drop waist, and held it up as if to consider Mary in it.

"You know mourning standards are all rather more relaxed since the War," she said. "I don't think anyone would bat an eye at you going to purples and mauves already. At least not in London, where it's so much easier to blend in. I spotted a darling little cloche last week that would be perfect with this."

Unable to resist running her fingertips down the silk crepe sleeve, Mary thought how light the fabric was for the approaching summer. For a moment she was tempted, then released the material, watching it flutter from its hanger as she clutched her purse in both hands.

_You have to let him go_, Richard's voice in her dream returned to her.

"I think you're forgetting that I currently live with my late husband's mother," she said. "And anyway, that looks more like office attire than a day dress."

"You've been spending a deal of time in Sir Richard's office, haven't you?" Edith said as she replaced it on the rack.

"Speaking of Sir Richard," Mary said as they left the ladies' department, "he asked if you're happy writing for _The Sketch._"

"Did he? How interesting. He never struck me as the sort of man who concerned himself with other people's happiness."

"Likely because you're not the sort of person who measures happiness in acreage."

They stepped into the lift and asked the operator to take them to the rooftop garden, as the afternoon had turned out lovely after the morning storms.

"So since Sir Richard failed to buy your love with Haxby," Edith continued their conversation, "he's now dealing in…what currency exactly? Offering me a job to spare you the shame of a sister who lives with her employer?"

Mary started to protest that Richard had no use anymore for her love, bought or freely bestowed, but the words died on her tongue. He _had _tried to spare her public embarrassment before-if not by keeping her sex scandal a secret to hold over her head, then by hushing up the Bates trial. The lift stopped and they exited onto the roof, where she was glad for the distraction provided by the miniature golf course.

"I appreciate you giving me the benefit of the doubt, Edith, but I'm afraid I must say I find _that_ perfectly gauche."

Richard probably thought it an ingenious idea, rooftop golf; she was surprised his renovation plans for Haxby never included this feature, along with the tennis courts and swimming pools he'd spoken of.

Edith _hmm_ed her agreement. "But the view is simply perfect," she said, going to stand at the ledge and peer across the rooftops of London.

Mary stood beside her but made the mistake of peering down all four storeys at the street; the height, as well as the heady scent of wisteria blooming on the trellises which shaded the tea tables, made her feel a little woozy. She turned to lean against a huge potted hydrangea.

"You ought to at least hear Richard's proposal," she said. "He's one of the most powerful men in British publication, and if you're truly serious about your career, he's your surest bet. In any case you can be certain he wants to pay you for your _writing _ability."

"What about Michael? If I'm truly serious about him, wouldn't it put a strain on the relationship to leave him without a columnist while I go to work for a rival publication?"

"Are you?" Mary turned to her sister, but Edith only turned her head slightly so that Mary could see her in weak-chinned, hook-nosed profile as she lit a cigarette. "Serious about Mr Gregson?"

Edith shrugged and exhaled a puff of smoke. "He makes me feel important. Intelligent. Necessary."

"That's not love."

"Remind me again why you were going to marry Sir Richard?" She tucked her lighter back into her handbag and took another drag from her cigarette. "I didn't want to die a virgin. Surely _you _can't judge me for that."

_The Turkish ambassador had a right to know how his countryman died. In the arms of a slut._ The whisper did not sting as it had when Edith hissed it at her; ten years' time-heavens, had it really been so long?-had dulled her, or perhaps it was as Richard said and she truly had gone cold now, too cold and numb to be wounded.

"Was it the same with Anthony Strallan?" Mary asked, coming alongside Edith again, mindful not to look down. "Loving how he made you feel?"

Edith shook her head, and her jaw muscle flexed beneath her cheek as she fought against the quaver in her chin. She exhaled cigarette smoke through her nostrils. "No. I loved _him_."

"Oh Edith."

"Do you know, we might have been married seven years by now, if-" Her voice caught, and Mary's breath hitched as she anticipated what would follow: _if you hadn't ruined everything. _"-if we'd married before Anthony joined up? We'd certainly have children. Why-we might have brought them here, to play golf on the roof. Anthony would have thought this quite delightful."

As Edith brought her cigarette to her mouth again, Mary saw that her fingers trembled. She felt her own do, too, and pressed her palms to the ledge to still the tremor, though she felt it must be the dread of the accusation which had not come. Not in eight years.

"Please, Edith. Tell me what you're thinking. So few people are honest with me." _Only Richard. _

"I want children," Edith answered. "And Isobel's right, I can't have them with Michael. And it isn't fair. Once again you have what I want but you don't deserve. You never wanted children. I always did. And which of us is a mother?"

"You're wrong. I wanted _Matthew's_ children."

Edith regarded her dubiously as she smoked. "When did you decide that? When no one thought he'd be able to have any? Just like you only wanted Matthew when you thought you could never have him. Yet you got Matthew and Matthew's child."

She tamped out her cigarette on the ledge, and flicked the butt into the air to fall four storeys down into Oxford Street.

"Everything you never wanted."


	10. The Bumpy Bumpy Road

**A/N: **_**Since my last update I learned that **_**Something Worth Having**_** won two Highclere Awards: second place for Best Minor Character (Richard Carlisle) and second place for Best Minor Ship (Mary/Richard). It's truly an honor for my work to be recognized, and it's all due to you you who read and voted for my work. And as always, thanks to **_**malintzin**_** for her beta work!**_

* * *

**10. The Bumpy Bumpy Road**

The telephone was obviously not the invention of a mother, Mary thought as she stood in the hallway of Grantham House and clutched the microphone in one hand and the earpiece in the other, leaving her helpless to assist George, who clung to the hem of her skirt and looked up from the Persian runner with perfect misery on his round face, eyes and nose streaming.

"Mary?" Richard Carlisle's voice rasped in her ear, barely audible over the baby's wails. "Is everything all right?"

_No_, she wanted to snap at him_, everything is _not_ all right. Don't you hear how unhappy my child is? How unhappy _I_ am_, she was afraid she might add if she voiced her true thoughts or worse, break down and cry herself.

"Fine," she replied instead; catching a glimpse of her reflection in the hall mirror, she was glad that Richard was not here in the flesh to see the tell of her eyebrows quirking upward with her lie. "Only it's Nanny Philips' day off, and Isobel decided she simply must do something for one of her charities. I'm afraid I won't be able to keep our appointment. I'm sorry, darling, but my hands are full."

Of course she hadn't spoken the last part into the mouthpiece, but apparently she had not pulled it far enough back because Richard replied in tones of amusement, "Darling now, is it? I hadn't realised our last interview ended on such good terms."

Their last face-to-face meeting certainly had not, their old wounds re-opened, though to be fair the several phone calls they'd exchanged since had been perfectly professional. Perhaps they had managed to put their awkwardness behind them once and for all, and moved on to function as business associates, or even friendly colleagues.

"Of course you can keep our appointment," he went on. "Just bring George with you. I'll let him bang around on my typewriter. Or, failing that, Miss Fields and the office girls quite dote on children."

"My-you do require a broad skillset for your secretarial staff."

"Miss Fields did get her start as a governess."

"Oh, Georgie," Mary said, lowering the microphone again as the tug at her skirt was followed by his cries being muted when he stuffed the fistful of fabric into his mouth.

"I beg your ladyship's pardon, but is there any way I may be of assistance?" Molesley peered with bulging eyes around the corner. "I could hold Master Crawley…or the telephone…"

Relief flooded through Mary as she gestured to the butler and he scuttled toward her. George stopped crying, looking up at the man with fascination, but when Molesley bent and slipped his hands under the baby's arms to lift him, George yowled again and flopped backward, conking his head on the floor-fortunately softened by the runner. In the end Mary cradled her son awkwardly in one arm while she kept hold of the earpiece, leaning uncomfortably close to Molesley as he held the microphone for her.

"I'm sorry, Richard," she said, thinking with envy of the modern telephone she'd noticed on his desk, with the earphone and mouthpiece all in one, which allowed him the freedom of one hand, or both if he rested it in the crook of his neck, "that just won't be possible. I wouldn't have the pram and I could never manage George and all his…accoutrements. Even if it weren't raining," she added, glancing over Molesley's shoulder through the door's narrow rectangular windows at the grey.

"Yes, of course." The crackle of static indicated Richard's exhale, followed by a creak as he sat forward in his swivel chair. "Well then what if I came to you?"

Her attention wavered as George's muffled babble reached her other ear, and the sensation of warm moisture spread beneath the shoulder of her blouse as he chomped down on it. Teething, no doubt, Isobel would say.

"Will we really be able to discuss estate business with a baby present?"

"He naps in the mornings, doesn't he?"

"Yes."

"Then it's settled. In any case," Richard's decisive tone gave way to one she was not as accustomed to hearing, the more playful one that had characterised the early days of their acquaintance, "there probably ought to be someone in the house who's changed a napkin before, don't you agree?"

"Is this the same Sir Richard who objected to serving himself luncheon on Christmas Day?"

"I'll see you at a quarter past."

After handing the telephone earpiece over to Molesley and instructing him to have cook prepare a bottle for George and tea and sandwiches for two-Richard liked roast beef with horseradish, she told him-she carried her son upstairs to his nursery. He fussed when she laid him in his crib, but was mollified when she gave him the bottle the housemaid brought-for a moment. The instant Mary flicked off the light switch and started to close the door, he screeched. She turned back in time to see the gleaming glass slip through the brass spindles of the bed and land on the plush carpet, and the little tear-streaked face peering at her between the rungs.

_I thought you'd enjoy time alone with Georgie_, Isobel had said on her way out, so innocently that Mary doubted it could be sincere. Having Richard around to call not being exactly what Isobel meant by _alone_, though Mary shoved aside the smidgeon of guilt when she considered that enjoymentwasn't precisely what came to hermind as she stooped to retrieve the bottle for her little boy who then proceeded to refuse it and all other attempts-rocking, pacing, singing low half-remembered lullabies-to soothe him to sleep. By the time she resigned herself to her shoulder being the only thing that would pacify him-and that only a little; he continued to whimper and sniffle even as he gummed her-it was too late for a change of clothes as she intended, so she had to hide the mess he'd made of her sleeve by pulling on a cardigan before she joined Richard in the drawing room.

"Look who refused to nap," she said as she breezed through the French doors and met Richard's quizzical gaze with a smile as he rose from the sofa to greet her. "It seems my son has a mind of his own."

"A stubborn Crawley? I'm astonished."

He reached out to shake the small hand George had just withdrawn from his mouth, and did not cringe at the drool as Mary did, though he did wipe his fingers on his handkerchief as he resumed his seat. She placed the baby on the floor and started his electric train, which she'd had moved up to the nursery, only for Isobel to bring it back down. Seating herself at the opposite end of the sofa to Richard, she offered him tea which he declined, but he did help himself to a sandwich as she poured herself a cup. She was in dire need, after the frazzled morning, and now with the sound of the train and Richard sitting so near making her half-expect to see a model Haxby and a crash with a toy car.

Gulping down the hot strong brew, she said, "Thank you for accommodating us this morning. To be honest I was surprised you wanted to meet with me again. Isn't that why you hired Mr Battle, to manage Haxby?"

"Regretting you didn't take me up on the offer for the job?" said Richard around a bite of sandwich. "I'd have paid you generously."

"I'm not the Crawley sister who's interested in earning a living. Which reminds me, I mentioned to Edith you might have something. She doesn't seem terribly interested."

"She will be if she speaks to me." Leaning forward to take another sandwich from the platter on the coffee table, he glanced at Mary over his shoulder, eyebrows lifted. "I've got a lot of experience selling ideas to people."

"I thought it was newspapers you hawked."

When he finished chewing his sandwich he turned on the sofa to face Mary more directly, long fingers clasped together on his knees. "Battle thinks I ought to break up the estate."

Mary sipped her tea. "Separate the land from the house?"

"Precisely. Haxby's prospective buyers, he believes, will be people exactly like me: wealthy businessmen who wish to have country residences or host country house parties, with little interest in maintaining a country economy."

"That seems a logical assumption."

"You think I ought to do it, then?" The lines on his forehead deepened as though this was not the answer he'd expected her to give.

Taking another fortifying drink, Mary replaced her cup on its saucer and set them gently on the side table. As she turned she glanced out the window; the Silver Ghost lived admirably up to its name where it was parked alongside the curb as the grey rain fell down on it in sheets.

"I think it was foolish to hire a land agent to advise you how to sell Haxby if you don't intend to follow his advice. What's your hesitation?"

Though she'd looked at him as she asked the question, Richard did not return her gaze as he answered. "Battle's probably right about the sort of person who might buy it from me, but _I _bought Haxby with rather a different vision in mind."

Mary followed his gaze to where it rested on George, who'd grown bored with watching his train and now gave chase. He crawled until his little arms gave way, then scooted on his belly, heedless of the tracks coming apart beneath him.

_Our children will have noble blood_. The only time Richard had spoken directly to her of children had been that day in his office, when she told him about her chequered past. How she'd resented him for it- for expressing the presumption rather than a hope of children, when Matthew had sacrificed all such hopes on the altar of king and country. She hadn't thought Richard possibly _cared _for children, any more than she thought he cared for her, though she realised now she ought to have done. If she'd listened more carefully to him as they walked together through the empty halls of Haxby, in the midst of the repartee about buying or inheriting furniture, his lot and hers, she might have unguarded romanticism in his voice when he asked her if they ought to rescue the house, to give it another chapter. _We can build something worth having, you and I-if you'll let us._ A home. A family. _A legacy. _

"You didn't rise in society by making poor decisions based on sentiment," she said.

Richard looked at her then, eyes brightening as they narrowed, like the strike of a match. "I'm sure _you'd _never allow sentiment to influence your decision to do what needs to be done with regard to Downton."

Before she had time to feel the sting of the retort, George demanded a reaction. "Da-da-da!" he cried, and both adults snapped their heads to see that the baby had scooted himself all the way to the coffee table and pulled himself up. He clung to the edge with one arm while the other scrabbled for the plate of sandwiches.

"George, _no_," said Mary, firmly; the saccharine _no-no, Georgie _with which his grandmother half-heartedly reprimanded him was always irksome. Though as she got up to remove George from the sandwiches, while Richard pulled the sandwiches from George, and the little chin, which had begun to quiver startlingly like his Aunt Edith's at the rebuke, disappeared beneath the yawning mouth when he burst into tears, she wondered if it might not have been preferable in company to appear too indulgent rather than too strict.

"He certainly doesn't shy from expressing his opinions."

Richard chuckled, but it provided Mary with no relief from her embarrassment. Though he might not be offended by the temper tantrum, in no case did she desire to put her incompetence as a mother on display for _him_, of all people.

"Yes, he's quite clearly expressing what dire need he is in of a nap."

"Perhaps he wouldn't nap because he's hungry?"

"He refused his bottle."

"Ah." Richard selected another sandwich. "Well, wouldn't any man, when there are roast beef and horseradish sandwiches to be had?"

Shaking her head-either at Richard or at George having resumed gnawing her shoulder-Mary paced to the window and looked out. "Sometimes Nanny Philips has trouble getting him to nap. A stroll in the pram usually does the trick. Obviously that's out of the question today."

"What about a drive?"

A backward glance revealed him to be chewing what seemed to be a rather large bite of sandwich, and dusting the crumbs off his fingertips as he stood.

"My brother George may be short on ambition, but he's a wealth of childrearing experience. He's spent many a night driving new babies around Morningside in his truck to get them to sleep. Do you think it might be worth a try?"

Mary looked outside again, the outline of the Silver Ghost still elusive behind the curtain of rain. George whimpered, rubbing his eyes and bobbing his head against her shoulder, stocking feet kicking at her hips.

"Your driver won't mind?"

"If he did, would it matter? After all isn't driving what I pay him to do?"

It was on the tip of Mary's tongue to tweak him about saving face after her earlier remark about his complaints about the Downton staff at Christmas, but he delved into his trouser pocket and, with a jangle, drew out the brass-plated keys to the automobile.

"Some days, I like to play at being my own chauffeur." The corner of his mouth quirked as he fought a smile. "Usually on rainy days, when I don't trust anyone with the Ghost but myself."

"Are there days you like to play at being a nursery maid? Only I think someone who knows how to change a napkin could also be in order."

The housekeeper knew how, sparing Richard the indignity of this task-though when Mary coaxed out of him as they donned hats and raincoats that he acquired at this particular skill at quite a tender age, due to his mother having contribute to the family income during George's infancy, he squared his shoulders and jutted his jaw in a way that defied her to laugh at him. _I'm not ashamed to be what they call a self-made man. In fact I'm proud of it._

Rather _too _proud of it, Mary had thought, once upon a time. Now, seated in the passenger side of the Rolls Royce, Richard at the wheel and her son wedged between them in rather undignified fashion for a future earl in a laundry basket, she was grateful for the humble upbringing that sparked this creative solution to her problem. Necessity, as they said, was the mother of invention.

Along with gratitude, though, came a measure of guilt. For two years this man had been her fiancé, had spent at least half of those weekends with her family, yet she'd never once met his. She had deemed much of his behaviour as ill-bred; in this, hers undoubtedly had been.

"Are your brother and his family well?" she asked politely as Richard started the car. "Have you been to see them lately?"

"As a matter of fact, George and his eldest are in to see me. Hence my remark about my female staff doting on children."

"How nice. Mr Carlisle must be much recovered, then, if George was comfortable enough to make such a lengthy journey?"

"My father's condition is well in hand."

If Richard's reply struck her as slightly elusive, she put that down to his concentration as he pulled cautiously into the street-perhaps overly so, given the lack of motor traffic due to the inclement weather; though he quite babied his automobiles. And he did not allow her time to think too much on it, turning the conversation back to her.

"Where were we before your George interrupted us? Ah yes-I was going to ask whether you feel Mr Branson's course of action has secured Downton for the future Earl of Grantham?"

"Weren't we discussing Haxby?"

"Does Branson have any concerns that the measures taken with the rents and mechanizations of the farming will keep the estate afloat in the long term?"

"To be honest I've been rather preoccupied with attempting to make sense of why George must grow up without a father to think about him growing up without an estate."

"What's to make sense of?"

Mary looked to her right; she shouldn't be surprised at anything that came from Richard's mouth, yet somehow always managed to catch her off her guard. His gaze left the road briefly to touch hers.

"I don't mean to sound callous, but your husband died in a tragically ill-timed accident."

"There must be a reason _why_," Mary said, quietly, immediately wishing she'd left the thought unspoken.

"Bloody hell."

He hit deep puddle too quickly at the turning, and Mary braced herself against the door as tires hydroplaned; water whooshed against the sides of the car, and she shot him a glare. "I'll thank you not to use coarse language in my son's hearing."

Richard's eyes flickered down to the seat between them; Mary's followed, and she saw that her son had fallen asleep in his basket.

In the wan light, George's long fair lashes appeared silvery-gold against the rounded edges of his cheeks. She couldn't help but ghost her fingertips across his rosy skin. He stirred in his blankets, one arm flailing up, and caught her thumb in his dimpled fist. She smiled, believing for a moment she was back in hospital in those moments when it had been so sweet to be alone with her son. Before Papa came bearing the news that turned that very thingso bitter. She slipped out of her son's grasp, folding her black gloved hands together atop her black coat.

"Is _that_ what you meant by the War changing Matthew?" Richard went on. "That somehow what he may or may not have suffered in the trenches caused him to crash his car hours after your son was born?"

"How do I know whether it did or not? He never spoke of it," Mary said, despite a tingling awareness in her rigid spine that he was the last person on earth to whom _she _ought to speak of this; yet somehow he was simultaneously the only person with whom she could without fear of doing offence or casting judgment on her.

"Have you considered that perhaps that's because there was nothing to speak _about_?"

"You said you never knew Matthew and me to have difficulty communicating-"

"I meant that as a jab at how you communicated with him to the exclusion of your then-fiancé. I should never have-"

"For heaven's sake, Richard, don't you see? That's the reason I considered marrying you at all! If only I'd been honest with Matthew about Pamuk from the start, we would have married years ago."

he spoke quietly, yet her words seemed to resonate in the closed confines of the car as the ones Edith had uttered a few days earlier echoed in her head. _Do you know, we might have been married seven years by now?_

"By the time I did tell him, I'd set a precedent of keeping secrets."

One which she'd held to.

Leaning her head back against the seat, she looked out the window at the rowhouses that lined Hanover Square, obscured red brick structures through the streaks of rain down the glass. Her secrets, her little white lies, had run together like rain…Clarkson's initial diagnosis-_hay fever_, she'd lied to Matthew, so effortlessly, and he had believed her, guileless, and so sure that the blame was his own-the secret trips to London…the operation…even, after all was said and done, what had been the exact cause of her infertility. And he had not even been angry with her-the thought flitted through her mind that Richard would have raged at her for so much secrecy, for so many lies -for Matthew had hidden much from her, too.

It had not always been so between them. _You must never pay attention to the things I say_, she'd told him at the beginning, while Matthew asserted, _If you really enjoy a good argument, we should see more of each other_. Once he had not been afraid to tell her what was in his heart, no matter how little she might like it, but a barrier had been erected between them, a no man's land more impassable than that which was delineated by trenches and barbed wire and machine gun fire he could not bear to tell her about.

"I never proved myself a reliable confidant," she said. "Matthew called me a storm-braver. My own, perhaps. Never anybody else's." _Never his._

"Not true-you stood bravely by when everyone thought he'd never walk again. Never produce an heir," Richard said, not without bitterness. He let out his breath, heavily, and asked, as he turned again coming around the square, "Did Captain Crawley _seem_ happy to you, during your marriage?"

After a moment's consideration, Mary said, "We quarrelled a few days before the wedding."

"I believe that's quite normal, due to the various stresses of planning such a social event. Not that I know from experience."

"We also quarrelled over his plans for Downton," she said, ignoring him and watching her hands twist together in her lap.

"But eventually you came to a resolution?"

Mary nodded. "And I suppose our quarrel was more due to his timing than to his plans themselves. The morning after Sybil died…"

"Yet another time of heightened stress. And grief."

She felt his gaze on her and when she looked at him-she had to-she saw etched in the strong lines of his face real sympathy, compassion, such as she looked up and found there after Lavinia's funeral. When she'd let him draw her arm through his, the weight of his large hand on hers solidly reassuring, and lead her back home.

He averted his gaze to the street, braking lightly to avoid splashing a pair of pedestrians who were picking their way around puddles to cross.

"Would you have considered yourself happily married?" he asked.

"Perfectly," Mary answered without hesitation.

"You got your prince charming, and your castle, and your heir. Some people might call that happily ever after."

The street scene swam in Mary's eyes, though not this time on account of the rain. Throat tightening, she choked out, "Happily for eighteen months."

"To those whom that settled life with a family and a proper home has eluded, eighteen months may as well be an eternity."

His voice sounded just as it had that last day at Downton, when he told her goodbye and, finally, that he'd loved her: tired, and stripped of all pretence. She dared not look at him, though in her periphery she saw his gloved fingers flex around the steering wheel, as if to bring himself back under control. He cleared his throat and went on in a deeper, yet measured tone.

"Eighteen months, Mary, shining with near perfection. Don't tarnish them by trying to find meaning in something that has no meaning. You owe it to yourself to remember the time with your husband as you experienced it. And to George."

"Poor Georgie," she murmured, looking down at her baby bundled up in the basket. He'd reached up in his sleep and tugged his little knitted cap down over his eyes. Her hand went out to adjust it, but stopped short of touching him, afraid she might wake him from the hard-earned slumber. "You must think I'm a terrible mother, too."

"Too?" Richard's head snapped toward her. "Who said that?"

"Perhaps not in so many words, but who hasn't?"

"Me."

Mary's lips quirked into a mirthless smile. "You've got a rare behind the scenes glimpse of my pathetic maternal instincts."

"You've been a mother for how long now? Seven, eight months?" The look he gave her as he pulled the car up alongside the curb and put the brake on was not unsympathetic. "Who's good at anything in so short a time? And your lot aren't trained in the finer points of child-rearing."

The playful glint returned to his eyes, and it drew Mary in.

"Unlike yours," she said. "But admit it-you didn't climb the ranks of society with the intent of playing nursery maid to your own children."

"When I was your age that might have been true, but I turned fifty this year. An age at which one stops and takes stock of one's achievements, and whether the sacrifices made to reach them were worth it."

"Thus driving yourself around London, rather than giving your chauffeur all the enjoyment of your own car?" Mary said lightly, the back of her neck prickling hot beneath her coat collar at this second reference to wanting children.

For a moment their eyes held, an unspoken acknowledgment between them, and a softening about Richard's almost like gratitude for the way she expressed it.

Abruptly he broke their gaze, opening his car door and his umbrella as he slid out. He came around to her side of the car and got the door, holding the umbrella over the opening as he handed her down with a sure hand onto the slick pavement. When Mary was confident of her footing she turned back to reach for George's basket, but Richard caught her elbow and drew her back. As she peered quizzically up at him he released her, plunging his hand into the pocket of his greatcoat.

"Speaking of your age, you've a birthday in a few days, haven't you?"

"Tomorrow, but I'm trying not to think of it."

Not only of Matthew's not being here to celebrate the milestone, but also the disappointment Mama tried unsuccessfully to hide when Mary phoned to ask her not to come, that she couldn't possibly face her family putting on smiling faces to mark the occasion of having reached the age of thirty with so little to show for it.

"In that case don't think of it as a birthday present," said Richard, drawing out a small rectangular box wrapped in smart striped gift wrap. "Think of it as a token of thanks for all your help with Haxby."

"I'm afraid I wasn't terribly helpful today, dominating the conversation with my own problems."

"We discussed everything I needed to about Haxby."

"Indeed? One wonders whether you needed to take the trouble of driving over here at all."

Richard's eyes dropped in that almost bashful way he sometimes had, though the accompanying nod at the gift cradled in his hand was smooth. "Well now you see I had an ulterior motive. I do hope you'll accept it."

"Of course," Mary said, but her heart quickened behind her ribs, and not because of the brush of their fingertips as she took it from him.

This was not, of course, the first present Richard had given her-there had been other birthday gifts, Christmas, engagement presents; all extravagant, though never Mary sensed they were given out of generosity so much the intent to indebt her to him further-as if Haxby had not been enough to do that. At least his taste in jewellery had not been so vulgar as his taste in country houses, though if it had been she could not have felt more bound by it.

This box, she told herself as she peeled back the smart striped paper was not flat enough to be jewellery, and it was the first gift he'd made to her that he _asked_ her to accept, rather than assume she would: _I wanted you to have this_, he'd always said before.

"A fountain pen," she said, finding beneath the wrapping paper an unmistakable leather case. "That's very practical…"

The words died on her tongue as she slipped the pen out and saw, engraved in gold against the marbled green: _Strong and Sharp._

"And personal," she said, her chest clinching. "Richard, I'm touched."

"If only I'd known all it took was a pen…"

He spoke glibly enough, but Mary saw the regret in his eyes, the slope of his shoulders, and again thought of their parting in the foyer of Downton. If only he'd known what she truly wanted. _I loved you, you know. More than you knew. And much much more than you loved me…_

She reached for the hand that hung a awkwardly at his side, pressing it in a gesture of thanks-and perhaps also in apology. His fingers squeezed back and pulled her in, against his body beneath the umbrella. When he tilted his head in a familiar way she thought he meant to kiss her, and her heart raced-in panic, of course, not expectation.

But he only brushed his lips lightly over her cheek, his breath warm against her skin as he murmured _happy birthday _in her ear.

He lingered like that, his cheek pressed to her cheek, hand clasping hers, for a long moment, and Mary did not move, either. Until the splash of tires in the puddles and the moaning of brakes as the vehicle slowed on the wet street made them draw back and turn to see a cab pull up along the curb a few yards from Richard's Silver Ghost.

The passenger who emerged from the back door, clad in black, and regarded Mary with astonished brown eyes, was Isobel Crawley.


	11. Family Outing

**11. Family Outing**

The cut-outs in the wide brim of Edith's summer hat dappled George's crisp white sailor suit with petals of sunlight and shade as she bent over him, allowing her nephew to clutch her forefingers in his dimpled fists so he could stand on legs as wobbly as a newborn colt's and watch the other visitors arrive at the front gates of the London Zoo. He babbled to them and showed off his new front teeth with a grin and glistening chin, a cheeky who beggar revelled in the attention they tossed his way like coins: _What a big handsome boy, _more than one person said; _How keen he looks to walk_, observed a few more, and one man followed with, _You'd best keep an eye on him, or he's like to toddle off into one of the cages! _From a few yards away Mary heard these remarks above the happy din of the crowd, and the latter struck her as rather a morbid notion. But Isobel laughed, so despite a scalp that itched as perspiration formed down her part from the mid-morning sun beating down on her own black straw hat and dark hair, Mary sat a little easier on the bench she shared with Aunt Rosamund who, true to form, huffed.

"Once again we find ourselves waiting for Sir Richard."

"You know, I've begun to detect a pattern to his tardiness." Mary glance from her son to her aunt. "It occurs most frequently whenever _you _are to be included in the party. What does that say?"

Rosamund's nostrils flared as she pursed her lips, for a moment looking so like Granny that Mary's mouth twitched-not so much at the physical similarity as at the thought of how indignant her aunt would be at the comparison.

"It says he'd do very well to be wary of me, after the ungentlemanly conduct I observed toward Miss Swire," Rosamund said, adding as Mary glanced away, "He's managed to put a bee in your papa's bonnet again."

"Yes, I know."

"About breaking up Haxby Park from its farmlands, and selling them to a beer manufacturer? Now how would you know that?"

Mary hadn't meant to let that knowledge slip; she'd been too hasty in her eagerness to change the subject from the uncomfortable reference to Lavinia and the Marconi scandal. "Oh…" Feigning nonchalance, she opened her handbag and rifled through it for her compact mirror. "Tom mentioned it."

He'd phoned a few mornings after she'd discussed it with Richard, with ill-contained laughter in his voice that took her back to his early days as Downton's droll, well-read, political chauffeur. Lord Grantham was enraged, Tom said, that the Russells' ancestral home had come to that. _Never mind he always thought the house was as vulgar as I did, _Mary remarked drily in turn, and then secured Tom's promise-which was not wholly convincing, given his chuckling, not to mention to Papa that _she _was the one who'd advisedSir Richard to go ahead with the sale_. _She'd had no notion when she had that Stephen Battle intended the land for commercial _hops _farming-not that she necessarily would have given him a different answer.

Tom had gone on to tell her she'd done a fine job helping Richard settle his affairs at Haxby. _It's just as well I'm not attached to being a land agent, _he'd said, _because Lord Grantham may well decide you're the better man for the job._ _And wouldn't that tickle Sybil? _he'd added, brogue thickening as his voice became choked. _Wouldn't it just? _Mary agreed, and _her_ throat ached when he pronounced George lucky to have a mother so capable of fighting for his interests.

_But not lucky enough to have a father so she wouldn't have to?_ she'd thought, but hadn't said. She wished she hadn't thought about it now.

Ducking her head, she discreetly consulted her compact mirror, dabbing her red eyes with the powder puff.

"Isn't that Sir Richard's car?"

At Isobel's question, Mary looked up to see the familiar grey Silver Ghost round the corner, driven by the chauffeur today, with the top down, and waxed to a spotless sheen after its recent jaunt in the rain. The motor slowed to a stop beside the curb, and the driver hopped down and strode briskly around the elongated front end to get the door.

"Ah, Sir Richard." Rosamund approached as he disembarked, donning his trilby. They had scarcely shaken hands when she glanced around him at the boy who was sliding down from the cognac coloured leather seat. "And this must be your nephew."

"Yes, I'm very pleased to introduce Mr Mark Carlisle." Richard's eyes drifted over Rosamund's head to Mary, the dimples appearing beneath his cheekbones with the deepening curve of his smile as his big hands settled on the blond boy's shoulders. "Mark, this is Lady Rosamund Painswick. You should address her as Lady Rosamund."

He returned his gaze to Rosamund as he said it, quirking his eyebrows at her almost as if they shared a private joke. What captivated Mary, however, was the way be leaned slightly into his nephew, the gentle squeeze his long fingers gave the narrow shoulders, the softening of his oftentimes brusque tones as he instructed him. In turn, Mark darted uncertain eyes up at Richard-the same blue as his uncle's, and the same shape, too, beneath a strong brow-but he extended a steady hand to Aunt Rosamund and spoke clearly in his lilting Scots accent.

"How d'you do, Lady Rosamund?"

"Charmed, I'm sure." She moved aside for Mary, who told herself it was only her imagination that Richard introduced her in the same tone with which he spoke to Mark.

"Your uncle has told me so much about you. You're very fond of electric trains, I think?"

It seemed such an insipid thing to say' Richard had _not, _in fact, told her very much about his brother's children, this one included, and she seized upon the one thing that leapt to mind. Even that she didn't know for certain; he'd said he bought his nephews a train set for Christmas, not that the eldest boy, aged ten, particularly cared for it.

But Mark dimpled and his freckled face split in a gap-toothed grin. "Yes, m'lady, and real ones, as well. I didn't want the train ride to London to end."

Mary exhaled in relief-only to catch her breath again as she met Richard's eye and found him looking at her with something like pride.

"How splendid for you," she said. "The journey up from Downton always seems endless to me."

Isobel introduced herself. "Is this your first visit to a zoo?"

"No, ma'am. We've been to the one back home. Granddad took us." Frowning, Mark looked up again at his uncle.

"Edinburgh boasts a very fine zoo, indeed," Richard said. "My nephew may not be quite as impressed with London's as the locals might imagine."

A look of being vaguely affronted crossed Rosamund's features, but Isobel effused, "Yes, I've read about the Scottish National Zoological Park. They've adopted a more natural approach to housing the animals, rather than the typical steel cages, haven't they?"

"Modelled after Hamburg's," Richard answered with a nod.

"They've got real South Pole penguins!" Mark announced. "We got to see the chicks a while back. They walk like this," he said, and demonstrated a penguin waddle.

"They must be darling," said Edith, who stood at the back of the group with the pram.

"And the first bred anywhere but the Antarctic." Richard spoke as proudly as he would of one of his newspapers' achievements.

"Well, Mark," said Isobel, taking the pram from Edith, "since you seem to be our resident zoological expert, you shall have to tell my grandson everything there is to know. It's his first time."

Mark peeped into the pram, grinning, and gave the baby a little wave. "Uncle Richie says he's called George. Like my dad."

"Yes, he is," answered Mary, looking away from Richard's smirk, which reminded her of how he'd mocked her for this fact weeks ago.

"Talking of Mr George Carlisle," said Edith, glancing after the Silver Ghost as the chauffeur drove off, "I thought he was supposed to join us."

The dimples vanished as other, less pleasant lines etched themselves on Richard's face. "No, he…" His hands found their way into the pockets of his trousers, soft grey lightweight summer wool. "I think he's not best pleased with me."

"Uncle Richie thrashed him at rooftop golf at Selfridge's yesterday."

To Mary's amusement, Richard removed his hands from his pockets and tugged at the knot of his blue striped necktie in clear annoyance; his scowl depened when she teased, "Your brother takes losses as well as you do, then?"

"It might have had more to do with a remark about how if he'd had any ambition _he _could own a wildly successful London department store instead of a pokey corner shop in Morningside."

"Oh dear," said Mary, while Edith remarked, "Your relationship with your brother sounds like mine with Mary."

"The difference being that you've deigned to go to the zoo with your sister," Richard said.

Mary tilted her head, but was not gratified as usual by her younger sister growing indignant; Edith remained cool and said, "Only because she just had a birthday."

Richard excused himself to go purchase their tickets; Mark watched him stride away, looking a little forlorn, and his small child's chest heaved with a sigh beneath his old but neatly pressed and carefully mended Norfolk jacket.

"I wish Dad could've come with us. He hasn't been back home because he can't leave the store very much. We're only in London now to see-"

He stopped short, cheeks reddening, and ducked his head; his hand went up to tug at the fair hair that curled at the back of his cap, a mannerism so like Richard's. Obviously he'd said more than he ought to have about something, but it was his first statement that gave Mary's heart a little jolt, as with electricity.

How many times would she hear George say those words? _I wish Dad could be here…_ She accidentally looked to Isobel, whose misty brown eyes indicated she clearly had the same thought. Or perhaps she heard the echo of her own boy asking that question.

"Well, Mark," she said, in that firm brave tone Mary had grown so accustomed to hearing as they nursed Matthew together during the war, "you must pay especially close attention to everything you see today, so you may tell him about in as much detail as possible. That way your father will feel as though he was here, too, and as an added bonus, you'll get to experience the zoo over again."

Richard returned with their tickets and gestured with a sweep of his hands and a smile for the ladies to proceed through the front gate with the Spanish tiled roof. Mark skipped ahead alongside Isobel, offering to push the pram so he could be close by to explain things to little George.

"What an excellent idea," she told him. "You must be such a great help to your mother with your younger siblings."

"Yes, ma'am. She says someday I'll make a young lady very happy, as my dad makes her."

"My." Rosamund glanced over her shoulder at Mary. "I hadn't realised how charm abounds in the Carlisle clan."

A sideways glance at Richard revealed his jaw to be working as he regarded the back of Rosamund's hat beneath his heavy brow, but his face softened as he returned Mary's gaze.

"You haven't had to cope with any awkwardness due to what your mother-in-law witnessed, have you?" he asked in a low voice as the conversation continued up ahead; Isobel consulted a guide map and advised they go up the terrace walk, past several aviaries toward the bears and hyenas, though Mark asked if they might skip the birds, as he did not find them very interesting unless they were penguins.

Richard referred, of course, to his kiss, the memory of which-the softness of his lips on her cheek, the heat of his breath and the solidness of his body so close to hers, the sharp tang of shaving lotion all combining to reassure her in that uniquely masculine way she'd experienced so often with Matthew but only once before with Richard, after Matthew pushed her aside at Lavinia's funeral-made Mary's cheeks prickle warmly.

Hoping he attributed her flush to the late May weather, she replied, "No, you handled her perfectly."

When Isobel had emerged from the cab and saw her late son's widow so intimately engaged, Richard passedhis umbrella off to Mary and approached the older woman with an outstretched hand to assist her up the slick front steps. _Lady Mary has kindly been advising me about Haxby_, he'd explained with utter innocence, _and I returned the favour and helped her get the baby to sleep. I'm so glad to have bumped into you, Mrs Crawley, because you might be able to best advise me how to entertain a ten year old boy in town_. Isobel, naturally, had taken the bait, suggesting the London Zoo, as the weather was forecast to turn agreeable; and she'd made no mention of the affectionate act after Mary followed Richard's lead and said, impulsively, _What a nice outing that would be for George_. Richard proposed she and Isobel come along, extending the invitation to Edith and Aunt Rosamund. _Make it a real family affair, the occasion of Georgie's first trip to the zoo._

Lowering her voice further, so that Richard had to incline his head toward her to hear, the tips of his fingers just brushing her back, Mary said, "I think it's Aunt Rosamund who should concern you now, not Isobel."

When she phoned her aunt to invite her, Rosamund's response had been, _If it's such a family affair, why doesn't he invite Robert and Cora?_

"That might have something to do with Lord Grantham throwing me out of his house," Richard said when she told him. Mary started to point out that he hadn't been thrown out so much as asked to leave, but he spoke over her. "One wonders why your aunt accepted. She doesn't strike me as an animal lover."

"Boredom. She's always loved a good intrigue. I imagine she wants to see for herself whether this is intriguing enough to write home to Granny about."

"I see. Well, in any case, she plays into my plot to win the family over one member at a time."

_Win them over to what? _Mary opened her mouth to ask, but Richard walked away as they arrived at the bear pit. It was a stupid question, anyway, one to which she knew the answer perfectly well.

She tried not to think about it as they viewed the bears and hurried past the hyenas, which all agreed were rather unpleasant creatures, and at Mark's insistence bypassed the wading birds for the lion house. The great creatures basked in the sun that slanted down through the bars of their cages like overgrown housecats . Mary felt lazy just watching them, and heard herself remark inanely to Isobel that they ought to get a cat at Grantham House.

"George might like to pet it."

"If it's just the fur you want," said Aunt Rosamund, I've a cheetah pelt in my attic."

"You never did!" Edith exclaimed, she and Mary wheeling to face her.

"You probably don't remember, but when you were quite little your uncle and I went to Kenya on safari."

"And he shot a cheetah?" Edith still did not sound convinced.

"Heavens no. I did."

As they made their way back toward the front of the zoo, where the map showed the primates to be housed, they chattered on about the evils of big game hunting-which, in Rosamund's case, were largely based upon her dislike of the use of animal print in décor. Their meandering path took them past the stork and ostrich house, where they paused because Mark decided that apparently very large birds _were_ worth looking at. Mary, however, was more interested in watching Richard tap a man on the shoulder and ask him to step aside so that Mark could get a better view of emus. He kept his hands on the boy's shoulders, as if to protect his vantage point from the grown-up visitors, leaning in every now and again to read from the placards on the fronts of the cages, or to point out to him the differences between emus and their African cousins.

When George began to fuss they moved on, but he didn't seem to be any happier once the pram was rolling again.

"I bet he's upset because he knows the monkey house is coming and can't see very well," Mark suggested. Before anyone could say a word against it, he plucked the baby from the carriage and swept him up with wiry arms onto his shoulders. "My baby sister always likes this."

He flashed his snaggle-toothed grin beneath the cap which George-who _had _stopped crying and smiled, too-snatched off the towhead and set askew. Richard put it to rights, admonishing his nephew that should he tire, let them know and they'd help him get the baby down, then fell into step with Mary once more as they cut across the grass to see the monkeys.

"No need to be alarmed," he said. "George is in excellent hands."

"I'm not." Mary wondered whether she ought to have been, despite Richard's assurances, whether other mothers would have been alarmed by the sight of a boy being so daring with a baby. "Mark seems a fine young man. It's rather reassuring. Of course I hoped for a boy to settle the inheritance, but they are entirely foreign creatures to me. I've been at a loss as to what on earth to do with one."

She glanced at her mother-in-law, who was speaking very earnestly to Edith as she found a place to park the empty pram, the latter seeming to merely tolerate whatever the older woman was saying to her.

"Not that Isobel won't feel free to dispense advice," Mary added.

Richard chuckled, though his amusement didn't reach his eyes, which were fixed on his nephew. Mark was singing to George, his thin boyish soprano piping over the noise of the crowds around them. _Georgie Porgie, puddin' and pie, kissed the girls and made them cry…_

"Yes, I may criticize my brother for a lot of things, but not his children. Of course Aileen has quite a lot to do with that." His smile became pensive. "I ought to get up to Edinburgh more often. Each time they're so changed. I haven't seen the baby since her baptism."

Mary nodded. "Mama wants me to come back to see Sybbie."

"Is she very like your sister?"

"Her colouring is more like Tom's. Though her eyes are dark."

"Like her Auntie Mary's."

She looked up at him, and his eyes touched hers; the gentleness she saw there, and in his smile, encouraged her to go on.

"Mama and Tom are always looking for hints of Sybil in her. Personally I'm relieved the baby isn't just her miniature. Papa protested the name, and to be honest I agreed with him. It makes it so much more difficult to move on."

"Was it terribly frightening? To face giving birth knowing how it turned out for your sister?"

At the time, Mary had actually been more preoccupied at the time about whether she would be able to become pregnant at all. Of course she could not say that to Richard. Not here, not now.

"Forgive me." He rubbed the back of his neck. "I didn't mean to make you sad."

She gave him a wan smile. "You didn't. I just am, these days."

Having had their fill of monkeys they found the ape house, and Richard lifted George down from Mark's shoulders. He secured his nephew a good viewing position by the chimpanzee cage and held the baby up to see, too, but George twisted around in his arms, more interested in pulling Richard's necktie out from his waistcoat than in the chimps. Mary rescued Richard from being made untidy, and as she carried George away for a bottle Isobel procured from the pram she overheard him say to Mark:

"They remind me of you lads."

She looked to see three young apes scrabbling about, playing chase and wrestling, and looking every bit like long-armed, hairy boys roughhousing. Did he see himself and his own little brother?

Mark giggled as a larger chimp, presumably the mother, grabbed the littlest one out of the tangle. "Except Ma would never eat bugs out of Andy's hair!"

"Indeed," said Richard with a chuckle. "Although Andy's been known to eat bugs."

"Oh dear," Mary said. "Now I'm alarmed again about the prospect of raising a son."

"I fished a few from Matthew's mouth," Isobel reminisced.

"Joking aside," Richard said, propping his elbows on the railing as he observed the chimpanzees, "they _are _very like us. Darwin's theories in action. Although Granddad and your parents wouldn't like to hear me say that," he added, patting Mark's shoulder. "Are you hungry? It's about lunchtime, isn't it?"

"I saw a hamburger stand over there," said Mark hopefully, turning from the chimps to point to a refreshment pavilion.

Richard obliged him, and bought lunch for everyone else, too, except for Rosamund and Mary who declined.

"God forbid Lady Mary Crawley eat anything so undignified as a hamburger," he teased, eating his out of the paper wrapper and seated on the lawn with his nephew.

"It's less about dignity than saving room for an ice cream cornet."

"Ice cream for luncheon?" said Richard in mock disapproval. He licked a blob of mustard off his thumb. "What sort of example is that for your son?"

She glanced to the pram, where George had fallen asleep mid-bottle. "What he doesn't know..."

The ice cream Richard bought her did present something of a challenge to her dignity as she struggled to stop it dripping onto her hand in the midday heat. At any rate, she thought Edith looked the more fashionable of the two, lighting up a post-hamburger cigarette in front of the gorilla paddock.

"If we really are the descendants of apes, Sir Richard," she mused, puffing an _O_ of smoke, "do you suppose the might share our regard for privacy?"

"They don't seem to mind making certain private matters public." Rosamund turned away from the exhibit and took a scented hankie from her handbag.

"I don't mean they're civilised, of course," Edith went on, "but look how they all sit with their backs to us. One wonders if they prefer not to be gawked at? It seems cruel to cage them, when they're adapted to the jungles of darkest Africa, that's all."

"Do I sense a topic for a future editorial in the _Sketch_?" asked Isobel with a smile.

Edith studied Richard as she drew from her cigarette; he leaned away as she exhaled. "Or for one of _your_ publications? Mary tells me you wanted to speak with me about an offer."

"Not precisely. Not until I've heard about your ambitions." Richard gestured with his hands as he spoke, slipping as easily into business mode as if they he stood against the background of his office windows, and not a cage of gorillas, and Edith seated across his desk and not a park bench. "Where do you see your career in a year? Five years? Ten? Are you content to write nice little columns for ladies' journals, or do you wish to expand your horizons?"

"Nice? I write about quite controversial topics."

"The women's vote is hardly the controversy in 1922 that it was in 1912."

"Tell that to all the women under thirty who own no property!" Edith made an admirable effort at not looking as though he'd ruffled her feathers, but Mary noticed the tremor in her sister's fingers as she brought her cigarette to her lips.

"Yes, yes, I read your column. I know your views. I've no interest in debating women's rights at the zoo."

Edith released a long breath of smoke. "How like a man. " She dropped her cigarette on the pavement, stamped it out with her heel, and stalked away.

"How like a woman," Richard said, slipping his hands into his pocketed as his long strides caught him up to her, "to be lulled into a false sense of security about her talents because she's become romantically entangled with her employer."

"I won't subject myself to this tastelessness." She quickened her pace, and it fell to Mary, following not far behind with Mark while Isobel and Rosamund brought up the rear with the pram, to placate her so she might hear Richard out.

"Sir Richard doesn't lack taste, Edith-only tact." The glare he shot her over his shoulder turned to a pleased glimmer when she added, "I've learnt to look for his compliments. In this case, he thinks you could be better, which means he thinks you're rather good to start with. If he didn't, he'd leave you to his competitors."

For some time they walked in silence, making their way around front to the tunnel which ran beneath the Outer Circle to the section of zoo across the road, where the large mammals resided. But as they came out from underground into the sunlight, Edith considered Richard and asked, with a measure of dubiousness in her voice, "So you think my skills might improve if I wrote for you?"

"Kangaroos!" Mark darted away from the adults toward the fenced yard where the creatures took shelter from the afternoon sun beneath scrubby trees planted in approximation of the Australian Outback. He turned back to call, "Mrs Crawley, does Georgie want to see?"

As George was still napping and Mark had Isobel's full attention while Rosamund minded the baby, Richard continued his discussion with Edith.

"You would indeed improve-or you'd be let go. It's as simple as that. I don't accept mediocrity."

"Your writers must find you a demanding employer."

Richard shrugged. "It's not my custom to ask whether they do. If they think my demands unreasonable, they are, of course free to give notice and find work elsewhere. Perhaps for your Mr Gregson."

"Uncle Richie just wants everyone to do their best work," Mark chimed in, apparently having eavesdropped, as he hopped back to stand beside his uncle. "He always phones to ask if we're getting good marks at school. And he sends presents if we are."

Richard tugged at the knot of his necktie as if he were not quite comfortable with this revelation to his softer side-as if it had not already been on full display today. "I believe in positive reinforcement." He slipped his hands into his trouser pockets, rocking slightly back on his heels. "Thus my employees are paid well."

"Perhaps sometimes he can be a bit lacking in taste," Mary remarked to Edith; as they walked on she caught Richard giving her a glare that may not have been playful-which made it all the more amusing.

In front of the rhinoceros enclosure George awoke unhappily from his nap, but cheered when Mary fed him the slightly soggy remains of her ice cream cornet. Mark, however, looked ready to cry with disappointment as they moved to the next cage, which normally housed the zoo's African elephant, and found it empty. He maintained a stiff upper lip, though, as Richard patted his shoulder consolingly, and there was only the slightest quaver in his voice as he declared that he'd seen elephants before at home and the hippopotamuses, giraffes, and zebras were down this way.

"Is it just me, or is it getting more crowded?" asked Aunt Rosamund as they proceeded, not sounding at all best pleased with the prospect.

"It's not just you," Isobel answered, though of course she seemed less troubled. "I wonder what the attraction is?"

In answer, one of the zookeepers came up the path, shouting and gesturing for the visitors to step to both sides to make way for the elephant. Which, as it turned out, was giving rides, the queue forming in front of the superintendent's house for visitors of all ages.

Mark's lanky frame quivered with excitement, but somehow he contained himself, except for his dancing blue eyes. "Oh _Could _I, Uncle Richie? I've done so well on all my schoolwork, and it's a rare opportunity."

Mary found herself pressing her fingertips to her lips not to laugh at that, even more as she noticed Richard struggling not to laugh at his nephew's slightly precocious, yet perfectly sincere question.

"Yes, Mark, it _is _a rare opportunity. One that would be a shame for us to miss. Wouldn't you agree, Lady Mary?"

Her answer died on her tongue as his gaze swung round to meet hers, regarding her from beneath eyebrows that were just lifted beneath the brim of his trilby in that all-too-familiar challenging expression, and understanding dawned suddenly what he implied. For a moment she hesitated as the throng of the crowd rose to a cheer when the elephant lumbered into view. If she'd thought eating a hamburger whilst walking around the zoo a trifle undignified, then being perched on a bench seat strapped high on an enormous beast's back certainly was. Yet as she felt her companions' gazes on her-Mark's hopeful, Richard's challenging, Edith's doubtful, Rosamund's disgusted and Isobel's full of anticipation-she made up her mind.

"As a matter of fact, I do." She lifted George from the pram, settling his bottom comfortably on her hip as she met Richard's eye. "How many boys get to say they've ridden an elephant before their first birthday?"

The look on Richard's face contained more approval than she thought she'd ever had from him, and she quickly turned away to join the queue, lest he see the colour it brought to her cheeks.

As they settled onto the bench for their turn a few moments later, George in her lap and Mark between the adults, Richard said, "I have to admit, I never thought I'd see Lady Mary Crawley on the back of an elephant."

"I could say the same thing about Sir Richard Carlisle."

"What made you do it?"

George squealed, and Mary held his pudgy wrist delicately in the circle of her fingers, waving his hand at his aunts and grandmother.

"I suppose I thought it seemed like the sort of thing Isobel would have done for her son."

"You know you needn't try to be Matthew's mother," Richard replied, softly. "He wanted _you _to be the mother of his children. And from where I stand, you're shaping up to be a very fine one."

For a moment Mary could not speak for the lump that formed in her throat. When she could, she said, "You're not standing. You're sitting on the back of an elephant."

"So I am," Richard said, returning her smile.

The elephant lurched into motion, then, and Richard slid his arm along the back of the bench-ostensibly to keep Mark secure in his seat. But his fingers found the edge of Mary's shoulder, squeezing lightly, and she leaned back, wondering how it was that the securest her world had felt since last September should occur on the back of an elephant, with Richard Carlisle's arm around her.

"I wish Dad could see us now!" said Mark.

"Me too," Richard agreed, glancing over his nephew's head at Mary. "I do so love to prove him wrong."

_About me_, she understood his silent communication. "Then I shall have to meet him, before he returns to Edinburgh."

"He's going back tomorrow, but he's planning another visit in a few weeks. I know just the thing. That is-if you're still agreeable to tennis?"

Mary raised an eyebrow slightly. When they were first becoming acquainted at Cliveden, they'd mutually bemoaned the summer sporting events they always looked forward to attending, including Wimbledon, had been suspended due to the War, which in turn had led to her admission that she enjoyed playing as well as watching. Though they'd never had the chance-or rather, had never taken the opportunity. If they had, might she have realised that such enjoyable outings were to be had with him? With her family-and his, too?

"You know I am," she said, realising she very much wanted another day like this, and to disabuse his brother of whatever judgments he'd made about her. "But after the thrashing you gave him at rooftop golf, do you think he can cope with me wiping the tennis court with him? Can _you_?"

"Oh no," said Richard. "That's why I've got tickets to the Queen's Club Championships."


	12. Game, Set, Match

**12. Game, Set, Match**

_**June, 1922**_

"Lovely day for tennis," Edith deadpanned, clapping a gloved hand over her hat as a gust whistled through the eaves of the Queen's Club Pavilion, nearly blowing it off her bob.

Mary instinctively reached up to secure hers, as well, though the narrower brim of her mauve cloche, simply trimmed with black lace and a feather, was not so easily caught in the wind as her sister's flimsy sinamay.

"I concur with your assessment, Lady Edith," said George Carlisle from a few places behind Mary as they filed down the steps to their seats in the front row of the Royal Box Balcony. His voice was gravelly like his brother's but not so resonant, and of course tinged with the Edinburgh lilt that had been schooled out of Richard's.

Pausing at the entrance to their row, Edith turned back and squinted at George-for though the day was cool for mid-June, the sun shone. "Says the Scotsman, without irony."

He chuckled, the first pleasant sound Mary had heard from him since their introduction outside the tennis club entrance. They'd shaken hands, the auburn-haired man appraising her from behind his wire-framed spectacles with cold blue eyes that tested every ounce of her good breeding as they took her back to those strained last days of her engagement to Richard.

"Pity the weather we enjoyed in May didn't stick around," said Richard, just behind Mary; the tips of his fingers skimmed her elbow, helping her keep her balance as she sidled into the row of seats. His voice dropped to a more intimate register, and he peered at her beneath the brim of his light panama hat-the perfect complement to his dapper cream-coloured summer suit and pale blue shirt worn as if in defiance of the unseasonable temperatures. "Especially since it's forced you to hide your new dress beneath a coat."

She had to smile at his eye for detail-and also at the irony that the man whom she had believed could never make her happy was in no small part responsible for her having at last cast off widow's weeds.

Richard was not, of course, the only person to notice her shift to colour to signify a lessening of her grief. Isobel had complimented the modern cut of the dress-the one Edith had suggested for her at Selfridges-but she had made no alteration in the degree of her own mourning and asked whether Mary was certain that she was ready. _Such a bold statement to make at a social event like the Queen's Club Championship… _Mary had only replied that nine months was longer than most young widows wore black these days, and it had occurred to her how Georgie had only known his mother to wear black. _That can't be good for a baby now, can it? _Isobel had conceded this point, though Mary knew it wasn't really about the clothes at all, but about where she was wearing them-and with whom.

"You seem more English every time I see you, Richie," George's voice drew Mary from her musing.

"If only you'd been able to join us at the zoo, Mr Carlisle. Even the most stubborn Scots couldn't complain about such a beautiful day."

"It was a wee bit warm," said young Mark, darting his eyes sideways past his uncle and catching Mary's with a glimmer.

George howled with laughter and squeezed Mark's shoulders. "Good lad. Mark hasn't stopped talking about that day," he added as he took his seat on the aisle, his son between him and Richard. "I feel I was at the zoo myself. Only without being too warm."

"The weather's been very changeable this summer," drawled Evelyn Napier at Mary's right-a pleasant surprise addition to their party.

"Perhaps we ought to leave off with further discussion of the weather," Mary told him, "or Mr Carlisle's liable to feel uncomfortable in the presence of so much Englishness."

"Says the Earl's daughter, without irony, as she attends the Queen's Club Championship." George leaned forward in his seat to look down the row past Mary. "So Mr Napier, you're the editor for Richie's competition?"

"That would be Mr Gregson," Edith answered, speaking loudly to be heard from the far end of their party, above the noise of the arriving spectators. "At the last moment he found himself unable to attend. You know the newspaper business."

And Mary knew her sister and that particular shrug, which failed to convey the intended nonchalance. Richard's demeanour conveyed scepticism, too, his eyes narrowed on Edith as if reading between the lines.

George, however, accepted the answer with a nod. "I didn't think you looked like a newspaper man," he again addressed Evelyn, who gave one of his self-effacing smiles as he took out his cigarette case.

"I'm afraid I don't look like much of anything."

"Evelyn!" cried Edith.

"He's quite the tennis player," Mary said.

"Note Lady Mary doesn't say _what kind_ of tennis player." Evelyn lit his cigarette, then tucked the lighter back in his jacket pocket. "She, on the other hand, could play in the championship herself. She's got a wicked backhand."

"So I've heard." Though George's mouth curved upward on one side in a smirk, his cool regard left no doubt as to his meaning, even if a glance at Richard had not revealed him to be giving his younger brother a hard look.

"Something we share in common?" she retorted, lifting an eyebrow.

For a moment George stared at her, then with a nod he glanced away. She'd won-this game, anyway.

Out on the lawn, the tennis game was just beginning as the finalists, Henry Mayes and Donald Greig, took the court, and all conversation was restricted for a time to the sport. As the former made the first serve, Edith asked the group whether he or his opponent, who returned it handily, would take home the title. While Richard was decisive in his believe that it would be Mayes, Evelyn disagreed.

"Really, Mr Napier? No solidarity for a fellow veteran?" For Mayes, Richard informed them, had fought in both the Boer and Great Wars-founded a Canadian horse regiment, in fact, before joining the RAF.

"It's nothing to do with his service record," Evelyn replied, smoothly as always, though Mary recognised the slight tremor in his hand as he drew from his cigarette. "Chap's had a good show thus far in the tournament, but Greig's at least fifteen years Mayes' junior."

"My point exactly." Richard leaned toward Evelyn as though Mary were not sitting between them. "Greig hasn't the experience, whereas Mayes made the Canadian Davis Cup team back in '13."

"Are you sure you're not making _my _point? That was _nine _years ago, Sir Richard. I'm afraid your man's past his prime."

"Not all that surprising he's Richie's man then, is it?" George quipped.

"I'm surprised he's not yours, then, as he's just about your age."

The lazy demeanour with which Richard had turned to his brother, and the bored tones in which he'd delivered his rejoinder surprised Mary. Given her knowledge of how he despised nothing so much as being made to appear ridiculous, she'd braced for the inevitable flare of temper that would spoil this afternoon as it had so many at Downton. Jokes, she supposed, were taken in better humour when dealt by siblings than by disapproving prospective in-laws.

"He might have been," George retorted, "had he not just lost possession."

"Dad?" Mark interrupted, tugging at George's sleeve. "Why did the umpire just say _love_?"

The brotherly banter gave way to father and uncle instructing Mark in the finer points of tennis scoring, though when Greig took the first set, George stretched his arm across his son's seat to slap Richard on the shoulder. "Shake your conscience in the old man a bit there, Richie?"

"Not in the slightest," he replied, standing up. "Mark-would you like to meet my sport editor?"

"Aye!" Mark hopped up, checking his enthusiasm to ask, "May I, Dad?"

"Sure-only see to it you stay close to your uncle." George smiled as he stepped out into the aisle for them to pass, plucking off the boy's straw boater to ruffle his hair, but as he watched Richard's retreating back, his brow furrowed. "Determined to make a newspaperman of my lad," he muttered as he resumed his seat.

"It's in the family, though, isn't it?" remarked Mary. "Your father operated a newspaper press?"

George's long fingers traced absent patterns over the arm of his aisle seat for a moment before he answered, quietly, "He did indeed, Lady Mary."

Had she misspoken? Perhaps she ought to inquiry after Mark Carlisle's health, or express her relief on Richard's behalf that their father had recovered from his recent illness. Before she could, George went on in his usual gruff way.

"And if he'd ever managed to afford a centre court seat at the Queen's Club, you can bet he wouldn't work during the bloody championship match."

Mary peered over the edge of the balcony to the press seats down below, where she spied Richard in his panama hat with a thin man holding a notebook. "I'm not sure introducing one's nephew to an employee constitutes working?"

"Richie doesn't know how to quit."

"He managed a day at the zoo without working."

That wasn't precisely true, Mary realised; even that day, he'd given Edith an interview of sorts. His mind seldom left the office. Hadn't that been Aunt Rosamund's first impression? _I'm sure I'll love him dearly if he'll ever look up from the page. _

"Mark tells me it's not easy for you to get away from the store."

"No." George hunched into the turned-up collar of his coat beneath his hat brim. "But I don't have a fraction of _Sir_ Richard's income to support a wife and three children."

Out the corner of her eye Mary noticed Edith angled toward them, unabashedly eavesdropping; it seemed preposterous that her family had ever considered _Richard _ill-bred, Mary thought, her own hands fidgeting in her lap.

"You'd do well to remember, Mr Carlisle," she said, "that such events as the Queen's Club are as much social as they are sporting. And Richard is _quite_ high society now."

"That's a different tune to the one your lot sang when you were engaged to him. I'm glad to hear it-but you must also appreciate my scepticism as to why our society's good enough for you now."

In her lap Mary chafed her thumbs against the edges of her curled forefingers, but she smiled blandly. "As you must appreciate the irony of a younger brother criticising the elder's move in one breath, and in the next being over-protective of a little sister making her debut."

Sheturned sharply from him, the smile widening on her lips as she faced Evelyn.

"I'm still not clear how you came to take Mr Gregson's today. Not that I don't prefer your company." She glanced at Edith, who had either honed her skills as an actress, or truly was not perturbed by the dig at her lover.

"Evelyn happened to be in the office when Michael cancelled." She waved her cigarette airily. "It seemed only sensible to invite him."

"You were at the _Sketch _office?" Mary addressed Evelyn.

"Mr Carlisle clearly isn't the only one who doesn't think newspapers and I mix."

"Perhaps not with _ladies'_ newspapers." _Or Edith._

"I'm helping Edith with a project."

"I've been compiling some of the stories of the soldiers who convalesced at Downton, before I forget them. Evelyn's kindly agreed to contribute some of his own experiences and impressions."

Though Evelyn had been nothing less than candid about the War, Mary still found this surprising. "That _is _kind," she said, "to further sacrifice four years' service to King and Country to the _Sketch._"

"It may not be for the _Sketch_." Edith did not elaborate on this, putting her cigarette to her lips and looking away, and Mary didn't have time to dig deeper before Mayes and Greig changed sides and the second set began.

Shivering at another blast of wind, she looked down from the balcony to where Richard had been speaking to his editor, but he was gone. Her relief that he would soon return to her side was only temporary as Evelyn hunched at the edge of his seat, watching the tennis with greater intensity than she'd seen him apply to anything but the Ascot Derby.

She sat forward to speak to him. "Are you all right?"

"Hmm?" He glanced over his shoulder at her, but returned his attention to the court.

"I didn't mean to give offense about Edith's project."

"None taken." Evelyn ringed as Greig tried to attack to conclude the point but his efforts were ruined by Mayes' passing-shot. "As a matter of fact," he went on during the serve, "I can't remember the last time I found something so fascinating."

The tennis, or regaling Edith with tales from the trenches?

"So it would seem the War's good for something, then," said Mary. "The Honourable Evelyn Napier's developed a new appreciation for tennis."

Another backward glance at her revealed more than the ghost of the old smile he'd worn so carelessly before the War beneath the shade of his straw boater. "Perhaps I'll even get out on the courts."

"Perhaps I'll join you."

Evelyn cringed, so Mary guessed some misfortune had befallen his favourite on the grass, though she hadn't been paying attention. "And crush my already fragile ego?"

"Crushing men's egos," came Richard's voice, looming above her as he returned to his seat. "Now there's another championship Lady Mary could play in. And win."

"I find crushing unnecessary," she replied.

"Indeed?"

"If a man will admit to his fragility, a woman's already won."

"I admitted nothing of the sort," he said, but the dimples winked beneath his cheekbones.

As he lowered himself into his seat his gaze drifted over the top of Mary's head, the smile fading slightly as his eyes fixed on Evelyn. _Lord, not this again_. Her heart and stomach fluttered with the recollection of dozens of instances when that glare had been directed toward Matthew. _I want to know where she goes…Whom she speaks to…_But it was only a flicker of jealousy, quickly replaced by an easy grin he looked out at the court, where Mayes had just served another point.

"That's thirty-all, right?" asked Mark with a tug on his uncle's sleeve.

"You've got the hang of it, lad," Richard told him, then addressed Evelyn again, smirking. "And I expect it's really the old man out there whom we should hold most responsible for whatever confessions Mr Napier has made about the state of his pride."

"Greig can still come back."

Evelyn's confidence did not seem misplaced as the younger player _did_ rally, winning two games after the early lead Mayes took in the set. Richard seemed unconcerned, however, more aware of what was happening in the box than on the court. A gust of wind whistled down the aisle.

"Are you warm enough?" he asked.

Mary refrained from shivering again. "Since you came back to block the wind."

"Happy to be of service. We _can_ go up to the clubhouse, if you'd be more comfortable."

"I'm a Yorkshire girl. But if the Scotsman's cold…"

She pressed her lips together against a laugh as Richard huffed, making a show of annoyance as he reached into his coat pocket and took out his flask. He sipped, then proffered it to her wordlessly.

Mary shrugged. "Why not?"

The tips of their fingers brushed as she accepted the flask. Whisky was not a ladylike drink-though Grandmamma was partial to it. From some recess of her mind drifted her own voice: _I'm not sure how feminine I am. _She tilted her head back to drink and caught Richard watching with undisguised doubt; when she swallowed without a splutter, she lifted her eyebrows and her chin, and as she returned the flask, he grinned.

Warmth coursed languorously through Mary, and it seemed to her that Richard moved at the same pace. He drank again, twisted the cap back onto the flask, and tucked it back into his jacket pocket, eyes never leaving her until they settled back in their seats. Even then their shoulders touched as they each leaned toward the other.

She ought to move, she thought, but then she would miss the solid press of his arm against her, the sinewy outline of his bicep discernible through his lightweight summer suit. The spicy sandalwood scent of his cologne appealed to her much more than the stale odour of cigarettes which clung to Evelyn on his other side, and Edith was monopolising her old friend, besides. The old _her _would have swooped in and dazzled him with her wit, but Evelyn appeared to be enjoying himself and she knew she enjoyed flirting with Richard. There was no point in pretending it was _not_ flirtation, when their _tête_-à-_tête_ was coupled with such an intimacy as a shared drink.

Strange how comfortable she should be, when she'd actively avoided this sort of arrangement when Richard was actually her fiancé. Then again he had not been like this when he was her fiancé. Oh, at Cliveden he'd exuded a similar charm which made her prefer his company to every other man's, but it had not been enough to make up for his flaws. Though those seemed less glaring now, as their recent interactions had proved him slower to lay blame or take offense, quicker to apologise, and the superficial things, the social graces he had not been born to and she had not bothered to teach him, simply didn't seem so important to her as they once had. Marriage, motherhood, widowhood had changed her. At the very least, they had changed how she felt about being alone.

So lost was she in her thoughts that when she did become aware of her surroundings once more, several things seemed to happen in rapid succession: the umpire called game point for Mayes, Evelyn's lighter went _snick_, assaulting Mary's nostrils with the acrid smell of cigarette smoke, and Richard got up from his seat.

"What do you say, Georgie? Time to trust your big brother's sporting instincts? Or will you stick with Mr Napier's man?"

The younger Carlisle's cheek twitched in acknowledgment, but his narrowed gaze did not flicker from Mary, giving her the distinct impression he'd been watching her for some time. She returned his stare.

"I'm betting on Mayes," Mark announced.

Richard glanced sideways at Evelyn, who was lighting a cigarette for Edith, then beckoned to his nephew. "That deserves a hot cocoa in the clubhouse."

"They've got cocoa?"

"They will if I order it."

As soon as they were out of earshot, Mary moved to the empty seat beside George and resumed their earlier conversation. "Richard came to me first, you know."

"Did he now?" The gingery eyebrows shot up in genuine surprise, but he maintained a level tone. "Why?"

Mary hesitated-for she realised she didn't know.

"For help selling Haxby," she answered, though she knew that was a far cry from the truth.

George knew it, too, and let out a bark of a laugh. "Is that what this is? Business?" He pushed his spectacles up the bridge of his nose, and studied her levelly from behind the lenses. "Only from where I sit it looks like courtship. More like a courtship that it did the last time around, if I may say."

"You _have_ said."

"Look, I know how Richie can be. I've a pretty good idea of how he _was_ with you. The thing is, he knows it, too. Just as he knows it a woman would have her work cut out for her, putting up with him."

"He's made it very plain that he accepts mediocrity from no one. But wives aren't employees."

"Neither are brothers."

They shared a smile, a silent acknowledgement of the bond of having fallen short of Richard Carlisle's impossible expectations.

The moment was short-lived. Almost as soon as George's expression had softened the lines of his face pulled downward again, cheekbones and jawline thrown into sharp relief in the shadow cast by his hat.

"He believed you were up to the challenge, you know. And now you're allowing him to court you again. Is it because you really want to be his wife this time? Or are you looking for a rich and powerful protector to prop up a crumbling estate for your son the future earl?"

If he meant to intimidate her, George had a thing or two to learn about the art from his brother. The words themselves were well-chosen, but his relaxed posture, one leg crossed over the other, did not did not lend enough weight to their delivery. He had to stand when Mary did-down the row, Evelyn had already risen to stretch his legs during the break between sets-but despite his having the advantage of height, she had the advantage of being a lady.

"Surely it's occurred to you, Mr Carlisle," she said, clutching her handbag demurely in front of her skirt, "that a great many women desire Sir Richard's fortune? He's more attractive now than ever, with so few eligible wealthy men to choose from, and thus far he's resisted the allure. Do you think he's foolish enough to be taken in by the widow and son of a former rival?"

George may have had a retort to that, but Mary excused herself before he had a chance to make it. "I think I'll warm up in the clubhouse, too," she said, though the discussion had not precisely left her cold.

As she stepped into the aisle, Edith called out that she'd come, too. Mary waited while her sister squeezed past Evelyn and George, then they ascended the steps together to the red brick building. A backward glance revealed the men to have resumed their seats, angled toward each other now, engaged in what appeared to be quite lively conversation about the tennis across the expanse of the three vacant chairs between them.

"He seems much more like the old Evelyn, wouldn't you agree?" Mary commented.

"I really couldn't say. The old Evelyn never gave _me_ the time of day."

"And now he's giving you interviews." Their eyes met as they paused for a liveried footman to get the door. "Mr Gregson didn't mind you bringing another man along in his place?"

"Why should he?" said Edith as she swept past into the clubhouse. "He's got a wife he expects me not to mind."

A fair point, if ever Mary had heard one.

The room they entered was a gallery, panelled in oak with a wall of windows that kept the place from feeling too dark or closed in and allowed spectators to view the tennis match from indoors. As Mary scanned the fashionably dressed minglers for Richard, waiters approached bearing refreshment trays. She looped her handbag over her arm and helped herself to a glass of champagne and a _vol-au-vent_.

"Your project with Evelyn sounds ambitious," she remarked to Edith as they moved deeper into the room.

"Is that why you belittled it?"

Mary rolled her eyes as she chewed her puff pastry. "I belittled the _Sketch_."

"I'd blame Sir Richard's influence, but you were nasty before you ever took up with him."

"I take it you're not giving his offer any consideration?"

"It wasn't an offer." Despite the previous disparaging remark, Edith's downcast gaze on her half-drunk glass of champagne indicated disappointment. "He did have a point about exercising my talents," she said, and quickly took a drink, her eyes darting about the clubhouse. "I think that's Kitty McKane."

Mary followed the gesture with the empty champagne flute to a young woman in a white dress, a pale blue scarf tied about her dark bob, dressed much as she might on the courts, but for the concession of white lace gloves.

"She and her sister will be at Wimbledon next month," Edith went on. "That might make for a good feature…" Her words trailed off as she moved away, placing her glass on a waiter's tray.

"If you get an interview," Mary said after her, "ask Richard to introduce you to his sport editor."

She looked around for him again as she stood alone, finishing her champagne, but still could not pick out his Panama hat among the boaters and trilbies, nor did she spy any children. As she traded her empty glass for another canapé, she glimpsed the familiar face of Lady Ashby, a great friend of her grandmother's despite having a face like a stewed prune. Not wanting to spoil the day answering awkward questions about why her parents were yet in the country-and who she was here with, which she would certainly write home to Granny about-and of course the inevitable condolences for the loss of Matthew, which Mary came to London to escape in the first place, she ducked down the corridor before Lady Ashby could see her, and took refuge in the ladies' room.

When she emerged a few minutes later, her wind-swept bob tidied, cloche adjusted, lipstick reapplied, along with a dusting of powder to hide the pink and slightly freckled tip of her nose, she met Richard striding around the corner, hands buried in his trouser pockets.

"There you are," he said, the lines of his face relaxing into a grin. Ridiculously, Mary's heart beat a little quicker; she blamed the champagne.

"Where is Mark?" she asked as they went back up the corridor.

Richard nodded toward the door to the Royal Box. "Back watching."

"Don't you want to see whether Henry Mayes beats Donald Greig?"

"He will, and I can read about it in the papers. It's you I wanted to see today."

He offered his arm and another glass of champagne as a waiter passed by; Mary took both, smiling a little to herself as she noted the deepening creases at the corners of Richard's eyes as he watched her fingers curl around the crook of his elbow. His own drink in hand, he wordlessly led her toward a different set of doors, which opened out onto a rooftop garden overlooking the practice courts. A half a dozen other people, a few of them couples, milled about conversing quietly, but no one took any notice of Mary and Richard. For a few minutes they sipped their champagne in companionable silence, arms still linked.

At length he asked, "Enjoying yourself?"

Looking up, she saw his brows drawn together above bright blue eyes in that look of genuine, almost boyish, concern that she should be pleased. The way he'd looked when they'd walked through Haxby together.

"I am," she told him, and his grin stretched-until she added, "Despite George's rigorous interrogation as to what my intentions are toward you."

"I'll throttle the bastard." He twisted back toward the red brick building as if to return to their seats and do precisely that.

Laughing, Mary tightened her grip on his arm and drew him back; the muscles of his forearm remained tense beneath her fingers. **"**I found it rather an enlightening glimpse into the male experience of courtship."

"Five years too late, you sympathise with my plight that first weekend at Downton? When the Dowager Countess pretended not to know I was a prominent publisher, and the Earl of Grantham deemed me an unsuitable husband for you because I wore the wrong tweed instead of a red coat?"

The words might have been bitter, but the low rasping tone in which he uttered them was not, and he smiled down at her.

Conversation lapsed again and gradually, as they stood enveloped by the other low conversations of the on the terrace and by the distant roar of the crowd watching the tennis on the other side of the building, his arm relaxed beneath her hand-which Mary realized had been absently stroking his sleeve. She stopped and, withdrawing her arm from the loop formed by the hand hooked in his trouser pocket, she stepped to the edge of the balcony. She set her empty champagne flute on the brick ledge and rested her fingers there, too.

"There was another thing George asked about," she said. "Why did you first come to call?"

After a brief hesitation, Richard replied, "When I heard you'd come to down, I'd just learned my father was ill. I suppose part of me wanted to see someone more miserable than I was."

"Misery loves company?"

She looked over her shoulder; he stood a few feet behind her, having also discarded his champagne glass, the hand not in his pocket tugging at the curling ends of his hair.

"I'm not proud of it." His hand fell to his side, as his gaze, darkening, dropped to his feet, only to brighten with intensity when he looked up at her again. The soles of his shoes scraped on the pavement as he joined her at the ledge. "Another part of me wanted to see how you were bearing up."

"And how did you find me?"

For a moment her question hovered between them, almost a tangible thing in the air, as their eyes held. In her periphery she saw that Richard's hand, did, too-just for a heartbeat before long, warm fingers closed around her hand. He tugged her nearer to him, turning her to face him as he drew her hand up, and curled the other around it. A callused thumb chafed the notch of her wrist, beneath which her pulse fluttered.

"As strong and sharp as I'd always believed you were."

_We can build something worth having, you and I-if you'll let us._

She let him kiss her hand. The terrace had gone very quiet, and she realised they were alone, the others having returned to watch the tennis from the clubhouse or the stands. As his lips grazed her knuckles, closing so soft and warm over each, one hand left hers to settle instead in the curve of her waist. Mary closed the gap between them, the calf-length hem of her lilac dress swishing softly against his trousers, as their clasped hands came to rest against the front of her coat.

"Richard." His name came out half a whisper; could he feel her heart pound through her clothing?

His eyes had been intent upon her hand as he kissed it, but now they flickered upward to meet hers. His breath was hot as he murmured against her skin.

"Incidentally, what _are _your intentions?"

Mary did not know how to answer in words-even if she could have found her voice-but she knew she wanted to reassure the doubt she read in his eyes. So she leaned into him, lacing her fingers through his and tilting her face up toward his as he bent to meet her kiss.

The sensation of Richard's mouth on hers was a familiar one, yet at the same time wholly different to the kisses they shared before. Perhaps the difference lay simply in her having initiated this time, in wanting to kiss him, and to be kissed by him. She didn't want to think about that, though, didn't want to think about anything at all except for the softness of his lips, the strength of his hand at the small of her back, holding her snug against him, the scratch of his day's growth of stubble as she traced circles over his cheek with the tips of her fingers. For nine months now she'd been without her husband, without physical affection, and now that she'd had a taste of what she'd been deprived of for so long-the champagne sweetness clung to his mouth-she aroused to the hunger that had been her dull companion through the long lonely nights.

Even in the heat of the moment, the irony was not lost in her that the man rekindling this part of her was the the man she'd left because she loved Matthew. She shoved that thought aside, too, for now anyway, and clung tighter to Richard's hand as she quaked at the increasing fervour with which he returned her kisses; for the first time she considered how it might be for him to apply the relentlessness with which he'd built his empire to the study of loving her.

_If you'll let us._

Unexpectedly, Richard broke away-though just enough to murmur, "Good. Because those are my intentions, too."

Her arms twined about his neck as he cupped her face in his hands to kiss her again.


	13. Overtures

**13. Overtures**

The new desk telephone was meant to be a birthday present for Papa, but until he and Mama came to town, Mary intended to make good use of it. Cradling the earpiece and microphone comfortably in the curve of her neck, she trailed the fingers of her free hand along the cord that attached it to the handsome marbled base, enjoying how comfortably she sat behind the oak desk and imagining the speaker at the other end of the line mirroring her posture at his.

"You know, Richard," she said, "I'm starting to suspect you actually _enjoy _opera."

She spoke in a teasing tone, which lately he matched more often than not, especially in the conversations that followed their kiss at the Queen's Club, but now Richard's low rasping reply was tinged with familiar resentment.

"I would have thought that was obvious from the many invitations I extended you."

There _had _been many prior to this one, over the years of their acquaintance. It was always years, wasn't it, for her? If he thought he could shame her for the equal number of times she'd declined, he was sadly mistaken. Mary merely rolled her eyes and recalled the excuse she'd given him in brief letters and phone calls: that even if Sir Thomas Beecham was trying to bolster morale by keeping the London music scene alive during the War, _she _thought it bordered on unpatriotic to enjoy such luxuries while the brave boys suffered in the trenches; that with the Royal Opera House requisitioned for furniture storage, the performances could only be a shadow of music formerly enjoyed by society. Richard had accepted the latter excuse less grudgingly-_I suppose in no case would it compare to what I've heard at the Scala in Milan-_ than the former, which he'd met with grumbles-_Interesting that your conscience wasn't similarly pricked by attending Nancy Astor's parties at Cliveden. _

"Or is it that you can't conceive of the notion that opera is too lofty for any but the highest members of society?" his voice crackled through her musings.

He was accusing her of snobbery, and Mary _did _feel slightly chidden for having misjudged him on the sole basis of his breeding. Not once had it occurred to her that he wanted to take her for any other reason than to show off his wealth or to impress her with his acquired refinement. She left off fiddling with the telephone cord, and instead picked up the fountain pen lying on the desk-the engraved one Richard had given her-pressing the tip against the pad of her finger.

"On the contrary. Opera is lavish. The musical equivalent of Haxby Park." She paused to allow him to take this in, and when he rewarded her with a snort of a laugh, she smiled. "And therefore the most likely to make you take notice. Frankly I'm more astonished I haven't heard you linked with prima donnas."

"Too high-maintenance."

Mary's eyebrows went up at that-_Yet you're courting _me_? _she thought-and though he could neither hear nor see her, Richard chuckled. She heard a creak over the receiver and imagined him leaning back in his swivel chair, stretching his long legs out beneath the desk, while she leant forward, pressing the tip of her pen to a page of miscellaneous notes she'd jotted down with regard to Haxby and Stephen Battle, and doodled a curlicue.

"Mmm, and I suppose that might tarnish the image of bold and modern values you like to present with jazz singers and night club openings and _en suite_ bathrooms."

"You obviously haven't seen my flat."

"Flat?" Mary put her pen down and sat up, genuinely surprised by this revelation. "Don't tell me you sold the Knightsbridge house, as well as Haxby."

"Haxby isn't sold yet. And no, I still have my town house. For the image I like to present of being one of _your_ lot, even if country life doesn't suit. But I don't live in it."

She wanted to question him further, but he asked, "Ought I to take all your objections to mean you don't enjoy opera?"

He was quite correct-though at the time she had objected less to the opera invitations than to the man who issued them-but Mary had no wish to admit so now. She was too intrigued by this surprising new side of him, which genuinely enjoyed an art form so many of her kind of people only feigned to appreciate because it was fashionable, the Royal Opera House a place to be seen.

"To be honest I haven't watched enough to form an educated opinion," she said.

"As if that ever prevented a Crawley from casting judgment."

Mary ignored him. "Papa has little patience for foreign languages. "

Her pen hovered over the paper as she waited for the inevitable jab at her father; to Richard's credit he managed to sound only slightly mocking when he replied, "Then am I correct to assume you've not seen _The Barber of Seville_, as it's in Italian _and _a rather scathing commentary on social class?"

"And I thought you built your newspaper empire on being a persuasive salesman."

"Haven't I sold you on a night at the opera , Mary?" he asked, his voice husky, breath staticky in Mary's ear as if he'd leaned closer into the microphone it as he spoke. "Box seats? Supper after? Maybe a little dancing?"

She oughtn't. If ever she'd had reason to refuse Richard Carlisle, it was now: nine months widowed, with an infant she was only just growing accustomed to and a mother-in-law who seemed increasingly disapproving of all the time she was spending in his company.

"I can't come up with a single excuse not to," she said, smiling, and could hear in Richard's voice that he smiled, too.

"Then I'll pick you up at seven."

* * *

Aunt Rosamund had never appeared more ill-at-ease in her own Palladian-style drawing room than now, as George sat at Mary's feet, pushing a velveteen elephant on wheels back and forth on her Persian rug.

"I wrote to Mama this morning," said Mary, suppressing a smile at her aunt's rigid posture, perched at the edge of the sage green jacquard cushion of her chair, rounded eyes only darting briefly up from the rug to acknowledge she had spoken. "I told her it was time she and Papa brought Rose to do the season."

"Putting an end to your self-imposed exile from Downton, without actually going back?"

"Returning to Downton would present a bit of difficulty attending the opera with Richard Carlisle tonight."

Mary raised her teacup to her lips and became interested in the contrast of the gilt mouldings and cornices against the green-grey walls, but she felt Aunt Rosamund's eyes on her, at last sufficiently intrigued by the conversation to cease worrying about whether Georgie's elephant would snag the carpet.

"I'd never have pegged Sir Richard as the opera-going type. In fact I thought he had an affinity for jazz. Or is it just for the singers?"

Ignoring the last part, Mary replied, "We pegged him as a lot of things he isn't."

Replacing her cup gently on her saucer, she returned her gaze to Rosamund and saw that her aunt's expression remained impassive, revealing nothing of whether she agreed with the accuracy of the statement.

"Which opera?" asked Rosamund.

"_The Barber of Seville._"

"Does Sir Richard know it's a comedy?"

Mary could not restrain an eye roll. "He's not averse to laughing. Only to being laughed at."

"When did we ever do that?"

Though Aunt Rosamund meant to be cagey, Mary had to concede the point. "Is disdain preferable to mockery, I wonder?"

"I hope you're including yourself in the parties who disdained him, my dear."

Mary's gaze had drifted toward the windows overlooking Eaton Square, but the ornate mirror that hung between the framing panels of golden silk drapery caught her gaze instead.

"I always acknowledge when I'm in the wrong," said Mary, looking away again at a tug at her skirt that also made her raise her cup and saucer from her lap. George's round face peeped over her knees as he pulled himself upright, his appearance of having no chin accentuated by the habit he had of sucking at his lower lip. "That's not to say some, or even most, of his actions merited it," she added, breaking off a bit of a biscuit for her son, who opened his mouth for it like a baby bird, then plopped down on his heavily padded bottom and resumed playing with his elephant.

"And now?"

Now Richard was making gifts of toys to Matthew's son. The elephant had been delivered from Harrod'sthe day following their zoo excursion-_To memorialise the occasion of Master Crawley's first elephant ride_, read his deliberate script on the card, though of course George was too young to remember it. Nevertheless, Mary appreciated the thought, and she leaned to wipe soggy crumbs from the velveteen trunk.

And now, of course, Richard was courting her. Again. But almost as if for the first time.

Straightening in her chair, Mary met her aunt's eyes. "Now I like him. I _did _like him at the start, you know. If I hadn't I would never have invited him to Downton in the first place, knowing he would probably propose."

"What if you'd known he was likely to turn out to be a ruthless blackmailer, as well?"

Mary very nearly choked on her tea; she hadn't thought anybody but Matthew, and her parents, knew how Richard had held her scandal over her-Rosamund raised an eyebrow as she turned to pour another cup of tea from the pot on the side table.

"I'm referring, of course, to Lavinia Swire and the Marconi scandal. Though to be fair," she added, as Mary released a ragged breath of relief, "that did expose a great many corrupt politicians."

"That's a different tune to the one you sang before, when you were so intent on tainting Lavinia's virtue."

"I always acknowledge when I'm wrong," said Rosamund, and Mary nearly choked again, this time with laughter as she recalled Granny's oft-whispered words: _Rosamund is never so righteous as when she's in the wrong. _

"So it would seem Richard has learnt to."

"Then he'd be the only man who has."

The reflective quality in her aunt's statement piqued Mary's curiosity, though she could not dwell on it for long before Rosamund's drifting gaze and rounding eye diverted her attention to George, who had crawled across the drawing room and now pulled up on the piano bench. By the time Mary had set down her tea and gone after him, he'd sidled around it and stretched up on the tips of his stocking feet to try and reach the keys.

"No no, Georgie," she chided as she bent to pluck him out of the way of the instrument; when he squawked she recalled the happy gleam in young Mark Carlisle's eyes as he'd chattered to her about how much fun it was at Uncle Richie's office, where he'd been allowed to pass an entire afternoon typing his own article about the London Zoo. When she expressed surprise that the newspaper baron had been so permissive within his lair, he only shrugged and said he was of the opinion that if children were never exposed to the adult world, how could they learn to respect it? At Mark's age, his brother George had informed with a grin, he'd been the reporter, editor, publisher, and circulator of Morningside's first gossip paper.

What stuck with Mary, though, was how easily Richard related to his nephew. Rather than take George away from the piano, she seated herself on the bench, holding him in her lap, and helped him to press the keys with his short dimpled fingers. His subsequent delight at the tinkle of the treble notes charmed Mary more than she had been since her infant son was first placed in her arms and his tiny hand grasped her finger. A glance at Aunt Rosamund revealed her to be, predictably, a good deal less so, but Mary paid her no heed and let George have his fun.

The cacophonous pounding reminded her of the slightly off-key accompaniment to a film as she scanned the framed photographs arranged on a shawl draped over the closed lid of the piano. There was, of course, an obligatory one from her aunt and uncle's wedding which Mary could not linger on for the pang it produced, except to contrast the high-necked, wasp-waisted creation of ivory silk which had been the height of bridal fashion in Rosamund's day, to her own flowing one with its dropped waistline and subtle embroidery. The groom looked even more a product of the past, not that men's wedding fashions had changed so much in in the past quarter-century, with his swooping handlebar moustache, the ends waxed to curled perfection.

"I remember how Uncle Marmaduke used to play the piano," she said, her fingers picking their way through an all but forgotten syncopated melody line. "He tried to teach us ragtime." Her and Edith, anyway; Sybil had been too little for anything more than sitting on their uncle's lap and banging the keys. Just like George now, Mary realised, the memory of small Sybil and her son blurring together through a sudden veil of tears. "Much to the governess' chagrin."

"And your grandmother's. My piano-playing banker, with his penchant for American dance hall tunes, she'd say, should not influence her granddaughters."

"Well I don't think he did, much. We were already far too rigidly educated as earl's daughters to get the knack for a swing tempo. Although perhaps that explains Sybil."

Mary swallowed the knot in her throat, and blinked, and saw that in her armchair across the room, the sofa and matching chair opposite all empty, her aunt looked so alone. _All alone with plenty of money in a house in Eaton Square. _She'd seen her like that once before, after Lord Hepworth had been found in her maid's bed. Against George's protests, she scooped him up and carried him back over to the sofa, on which she perched at the corner nearest Rosamund's chair, and appeased him with another biscuit.

"Mama liked Marmaduke's music," she said. Mama liked Marmaduke himself, and there had always been a fond, faraway expression in her clear blue eyes when she described him as having borne a striking resemblance to Theodore Roosevelt. Though Mary knew little about American presidents.

"I did, too. And I wish I'd realised how much I did before he wasn't here to play it."

* * *

After returning home late from tea with Aunt Rosamund, Mary counted on Richard's habit of tardiness to allow her adequate time to dress for the opera-and, after the melancholy turn the visit had taken, on an entertainingnight out to lift her spirits. As her luck would have it, she approached the drawing room at nearly a quarter past seven to find him for once having arrived perfectly on time, looking indisposed to exchange pleasantries with Isobel, who was telling him that George had been put to bed early.

"He returned from his great-aunt's with a bit of a sniffle. Nothing serious, I'm sure, just one of those pesky summer colds. Do _you_ feel anything come on, my dear?" she pounced on Mary as she slipped through the French doors. "Only your parents will think me negligent if you're taken to bed when they arrive. You look a trifle flushed."

Mary _felt _a little flushed, but she also felt fairly certain it had more to do with the appreciative sweep of Richard's eyes as he rose to greet her.

"She looks in the pink of health to me." He took her gloved hand. "Or would mauve be the more apt term?"

"Fuchsia, in fact."

His long fingers squeezed hers tighter, thumb scuffing the jut of her wrist through the second skin of black satin before he released it.

"Obviously I've made more a study of things that are black and white and red all over." At his own joke, lips slightly parted as though in expectation; Isobel obliged him with a polite chuckle, though Mary only managed a twitch of an eyebrow. "Whatever that precise shade of purple is, you wear it well, Lady Mary."

She thanked him, but had a feeling as his gaze travelled downward from her face to examine her matching t-strap pumps, that he was complimenting the cut of her gown rather than the colour he: the chiffon slip, with its overdress of gold lamé woven in geometric patterns, fell just below the tops of her calves, the shortest hemline she'd yet dared; even Richard must know that purple by any name was still mourning. Then again, this was the very man who'd thought tweed was essential for a Friday to Monday party, regardless of whether a shoot was scheduled or not.

In any case, after months of black and isolation and having no wish to be desired to any man but the only one who would never again gaze at her from across a crowded room, she recognised herself as a woman who wanted to be-and was-noticed. When Richard slid into the driver's seat and leaned across the seat to steal a peck on her cheek, Mary turned her head, her fingertips sliding over the strong line of his jaw as he kissed her lips instead.

Wrong tweed notwithstanding, Richard _did_ make a rather splendid picture in evening clothes; he sat as though enthroned on the gilt and crimson velvet armchair in their Grand Tier box when they arrived just as the horns and timpani blasted out the opening notes of the _Barber_'s familiar Overture, he as much as anyone present looked as though he belonged in the Royal Opera House.

However, when the house lights rose again at the intermission and Mary, putting her opera glasses away in the niche set into the railing, turned to him and found him not looking like he _wanted _to belong. Or as if he were fully present there at all. Beneath the ridge of his brow, his eyes fixed on the curtain, hard but not seeming really to see it, and the tightness about his mouth and chin recalled how frequently he'd worn just that expression at Downton. She thought particularly of that dreadful Christmas, when he'd nursed his Scotch with a glower during the charades game while she left him to his misery.

"What's the matter?" she asked. "Not the opera lover you claimed to be?"

Richard glanced sideways at her. "_Hmm_? Oh." He straightened up in his seat, uncrossing his legs. "The truth is, I've seen much better performances. I daresay La Scala spoiled me."

"I daresay," said Mary, barely refraining from rolling her eyes. "Richard, if you think your repertoire of opera attendances will impress me-"

"Considering you don't care a great deal for opera, that hardly seems a worthwhile endeavour." His response was smooth, but Mary recognised the expression of almost feline nonchalance, of knowing he'd been called out, yet denying any embarrassment.

"It also hardly seems worthwhile to compare one of the premiere opera companies in the world to any other. We're still a few years out from the War…"

Sconces glittered from the balconies like fairy lights on a Christmas tree as Mary cast her gaze about the hall. The elegant opera-goers who stood in the pretence of stretching their legs but really showed off their impeccably fashionable clothes disappeared as she envisioned instead the space filled with heirloom furniture and precious works of art taken from historical buildings and stately family homes in the hope that it might be safe from German bombs. While the heirs to these dynasties, she thought, glimpsing a man with a pinned-up sleeve down below, shipped out to become the detritus of muddy fields. Or, if they did return, never left the trenches entirely behind, or fitted exactly into the places they once occupied.

Where was Evelyn Napier now? Sitting in his dark corner at Murray's jazz club, chain smoking? With he with Edith, recounting his experiences in the trenches?

She swung her gaze back to her companion seated to her right, and gave him a smile. "Enjoy it for what it is, Richard."

He sat back in his chair, his sharp features relaxing into a slight smile as he let out his breath. "You're enjoying it, then?"

_Relief_. Had he been cross because he thought the performance did not please her? Well-her cheekbones prickled-she'd set a precedent for that. But hadn't he noticed her applause after each aria? Her laughter at all the appropriate moments? Figaro the barber conspiring with Count Almaviva to woo Rosina under the nose of her oppressive guardian Dr Bartolo, who wanted to wed her for her fortune, the former already counting his gold, the latter dreaming of his fair Countess…Rosina avoiding discovery by switching the love letter Bartolo caught her writing with her maid's laundry list…the Count barging into the house disguised as a drunken soldier whose cheeky recitative insulted the doctor and incited a riot which involved the entire neighbourhood…Then again, Mary neither applauded nor laughed to precisely the emotive degree that Mama, for example, would, so perhaps Richard truly had not realised. _That's not who we are. _

"Despite my rather rusty Italian, learnt from our German governess, yes. Very much."

For the fleetest moment, Richard's dimples belied the genuine pleasure he took at _her _pleasure, and then his lips pressed together and twisted into a smirk. "Your Italian pronunciation must-"

"Leave a lot to be desired."

"Well-I promise not to ask you to speak Italian if you won't ever ask me to speak French."

They shook hands on it, but when Richard released her fingertips as their laughter faded, his hand went up to smooth his hair.

"I wish I'd thought to send you over the libretto to peruse this afternoon."

"It doesn't matter. I'm following along well enough to pick up on exactly why you enjoy this opera."

"Indeed? Do enlighten me, Lady Mary."

"Because you relate to Figaro. His position allows him to know everything that goes on in his city."

Mary followed the curve of his Adam's apple above the wing tips of his collar as he leaned his head back and chuckled. "Thank God you haven't cast me as Bartolo."

At one time she might have drawn a parallel, but now she said, "Destroying his rivals' reputations through slander? I thought your weapon of choice was truth."

The laughter that had been rumbling from him abruptly stopped. Something flickered in his eyes in acknowledgment of what that had meant in the past, yet a current seemed to pass from them into Mary, an electricity that had never existed between them before, but might have been…_If you'll let us._

Three flashes of the house lights, signalling the audience back to their seats, brought the moment to an end. Applauding as the curtain lifted for act two, Mary inclined her head toward Richard, who leant forward to hear her say, "Bartolo is a moustache-twirling villain. The barber has all the real power."

"More than the Count, whose title allowed him to escape punishment? Careful." Richard's breath was soft and warm on her cheek, and the tip of his nose bumped her temple. "People may think you're subverting the social order."

Mary sat rigid, schooling into submission the shudder that threatened to ripple between her shoulder blades to the base of her neck. "That's the point, isn't it? The lowly barber pulls all the strings, wreaking havoc on Bartolo's household and ensuring a happy marriage for the Count."

"Don't underestimate Rosina, though-a woman who wants to control her own destiny."

"It's a shame her destiny is the Count, though. He's not half so interesting as Figaro."

Richard straightened in his seat again, moving out of the shadow into the light that emanated from the stage so that she could see him scowling again.

"He's not half the singer, either…" He gestured toward the bass onstage, who was performing an ironic recitative about his suspicions that the Count was again attempting to woo Rosina _in cognito_, this time in the guise of a substitute for her music teacher. "And you may not have noticed in the first act that the _Calumny _was transposed to a higher key than Rossini composed it."

Of course she had not. "If I must contend with my own spotty Italian _and _your commentary, I may lose the plot entirely."

"Sorry. It's just that they ought to cast a bass who can actually sing bass-" He broke off as Mary reached out and caught his gesturing hand, drawing it back to rest on the arm of his chair.

"You realise, of course, that your negative bias may prompt me not to accept another invitation to the opera?"

"If I take you to another opera," he said, lacing their fingers together, "it'll be in Milan."

Richard did not speak again for the remainder of the opera, except to occasionally lean in and whisper a translation of the libretto-once or twice his lips brushed her temple as he did so-but he laughed often, both aloud or silently, his amusement evident as a glimmer in his eyes when they glanced at each other

as the onstage escapades of the barber and the secret lovers to outwit Bartolo and his cronies increased in hilarity-thanks to the arrival of a convenient thunderstorm-until the story crescendoed to its inevitable happy conclusion.

Mary was sorry when they rose from their seats to exit the box that it had to end, though as Richard tucked her arm through his, covering her hand in the crook of his elbow with his own, she was buoyed by the thought that the night was not quite over yet. As they descended the great carpeted staircase that led down to the lobby, she started to ask what arrangements he'd made for supper, when he abruptly disengaged himself from her grasp. Muttering an excuse almost as an afterthought, he left her side and hurried down the remainder of the steps, his eyes fixed as if he'd spotted some quarry. She did not follow, having no wish to attempt the stairs at speed in her evening shoes without his steadying arm, or to cut her own path across the people surging toward the exits, like a lone salmon swimming upstream, so she moved to the edge of the staircase and peered over the ornate railing, trying to pick out his top hat among the dozens of other seemingly identical ones worn by the men mingling on the black and white marble floor. Instead she spied the bald patch at the back of his head, the top hat clutched by the brim in both hands as he stood locked in conversation with a man about his own age but leaning on a cane; his greying hair, she observed, could have benefitted from a dab of Richard's pomade, and the wing-tipped collar needed buttoning above his loose white bowtie.

Dishevelled as Richard's companion was, Mary was miffed to have been abandoned by her escort-even more so when a female voice to her right glided over her name as if it were made of silk.

"I'd recognise your profile anywhere," said Amelia Semphill, sidling her way across the burgundy carpeted stair; she also had a distinguishing profile, though hers took the form of a prominent nose and thick eyebrows. "I've still never seen cheekbones the equal of yours. Lovely to see them again," she said, leaning in to give her a peck. "And you."

"It's been a long time," Mary replied, her chest tightening, as her mind supplied exactly _how _long: Lady, Amelia Semphill, eldest of the Duke of Yeovil's three children, had, along with her parents and youngest brother, attended her wedding.

"I never would have imagined as I watched you walk up the aisle on your groom's arm that the next time I'd saw you I'd offer condolences for his passing."

That was so like Amelia, Mary thought, even as an ache pulsed behind her left breast, that the corner of her mouth twitched in a smirk. The Yeovils may have been old friends of Mary's family, but it had been the two sons with whom she had been amiable, not their sister.

"Your letter was very kind," she replied, glancing over the bannister to see that Richard was still engrossed in his conversation. "It comforted me greatly to hear from someone who understood the depth of my loss."

Amelia did not flinch. "If there's anything the British Empire abounds in these days, it's widows. You're in mauve, though," she breeze on, glancing back over her shoulder at Mary as she resumed her descent of the staircase, clearly expecting her to come along and leaving her with no real choice but to follow. "My mother will be pleased to hear you're out in society again. Is yours here with you?"

"No, my parents are still in the country." Hastily, to avoid further questioning on the subject, Mary asked, "And who did you come with?"

"Why, Tony of course," Amelia replied, and with an almost lazy flick of her glass beaded handbag, gestured vaguely across the foyer. "He's off somewhere, finding champagne. Would you care to join us? I know he'd like to see you."

"Or your mother would him to?"

"Indeed."

Mary smirked again. Like Richard, Amelia was many things, but never a liar. She glanced his way now, just in time to see his friend give him an awkward pat on the arm, then limp away, Richard watching him go with slumped shoulders and sliding his fingers over the brim of the hat clutched tight in his hand. Then, abruptly, he straightened up and swept the room with his gaze, which brightened as it alit on her.

"Thank you, Amelia, but I have supper plans. Another time? And please, do give Anthony my regards."

As she met Richard, he offered her his arm, along with his apologies for abandoning her. "But it appeared you found acquaintance of your own?"

"An old family friend, Lady Amelia Sempill."

"The London Semphills?" Richard asked.

"By marriage."

Mary remembered, suddenly, that Evelyn Napier had been briefly engaged to one of the Semphill girls; it seemed strange that Richard should know them, too, though she realised that was an old prejudice, that his sphere had a broad scope, overlapping hers.

"Amelia was a Gillingham." A backward glance over her shoulder, idea suddenly occurred, and she decided to have a little sport with Richard. "She invited me for a drink with her brother Anthony."

Glancing backward over her shoulder, she spied them standing together, Anthony having procured the sought-after champagne.

"I hope you refused," said Richard, following her gaze to the tall, dark, handsome younger man who, at least on the surface, appeared untouched by the War; to his credit, Richard's voice contained a joking note instead of a jealous one.

Anthony did not see Mary, though her glance didn't linger when Amelia caught her eye from across the foyer.

"I turned down the drink," Mary said as they stepped through the wide open glass doors, and when a glance up at him revealed him to be frowning as he put on his top hat, she said, "Perhaps I oughtn't to have, since you wouldn't even introduce me to your friend."

"He wasn't terribly amiable, you might have noticed," Richard replied, signalling to the valet, who wasted no time going to bring the motor around.

For the first time Mary wondered what _his _acquaintance would think of his renewed courtship of her; his brother, after all, disapproved.

She shrugged. "People might be more amiable if you didn't pounce on them with business when they're out for pleasure."

"It wasn't a business matter."

The Silver Ghost pulled up to the curb, and the valet hopped out, sweeping open the door. Mary looked up at Richard as he slid into the driver's seat, the pensive look masked by the return of his smile.

"I hope your refusal of a drink with Lord Gillingham means you're still amenable to supper with me."

"Lord Anthony," Mary corrected. "The younger son of the Duke of Yeovil."

In the light from a passing motor on the street, she could just make out the flicker of Richard's cheek muscle. "A courtesy title, then. No wonder you turned him down."

Mary rolled her eyes but said, "I would rather like supper. If there's anywhere the factotum of the city can go without being recognised by his disagreeable friends."

And, truth be told, she would prefer not to encounter any more of _her _friends, who reminded her of her late husband, or the return to the loathsome marriage market she now faced without him.

After a moment, Richard said, "There is one place we're certain to have privacy." His fingers opened and then flexed again on the steering wheel, and the sidelong dart of his eyes indicated wariness to propose what he had in mind.

"Your house?" Mary prompted.

"Certainly not."

She was relieved. Though she'd never seen Richard's townhouse during their engagement-it would not have been proper-the prospect of doing so now did not intrigue her now, either. Tonight she'd seen facets of Richard he'd never revealed before, and she doubted a house he kept for appearances would show her any more of those hidden depths than Haxby Park had.

"Too many servants' tongues to wag," he added.

"Is _that _why you gave your chauffeur the night off?"

A dimple flashed but Richard said, "He's not getting the night off. The Ghost isn't my only car, you know."

And yet _some _parts of the Richard she knew would never change. For a moment she regarded him in silence as he drove, then she asked, "The aforementioned flat?"

He nodded, almost reluctantly. Was he concerned about propriety? Or hesitant to reveal his secrets to her? Of course, he'd been the one to bring up the flat in the first place. It _was_, certainly, improper. Though not the most improper thing she had ever ventured to do.

The Silver Ghost groaned softly to a stop as Richard braked for a traffic signal. He looked at her, awaiting direction, his face handsome and hopeful in the light of a streetlamp.

"So long as someone there can cook."


	14. Unmasked Ball

_**A/N: The jazz standard featured in this chapter is "The Sheik of Araby," published in 1921 with lyrics by Harry B Smith and Francis Wheeler, and music by Ted Snyder. Many musicians have performed it over the years, and you can find numerous versions on YouTube; a good one is Leon Redbone's from the Boardwalk Empire soundtrack. To see pictures of my inspiration for Richard's bold and modern flat, check out my Tumblr (I go by khaleesa there). My continued thanks to each and every one of you who reads and comments on this story. And as always, eternal gratitude to malintzin who helped me make this chapter what I hope is something worth waiting for. ;)**_

* * *

**14. Unmasked Ball**

The someone at Richard's flat who could cook was Richard himself. Leaning against the white kitchen cupboards, watching him butter bread for cheese and pickle sandwiches, Mary wasn't sure if that entirely counted. Although-she swirled the faintly cloudy mixture in her cocktail glass-he _had_ mixed a quite nice White Lady. So nice, in fact, that she'd drunk more of it than she ought to have on a mostly empty stomach, resulting in her present struggle not to laugh more at his anecdote about the second Royal Opera House fire than it merited...

…and not to glance at his forearms, divested of his tailcoat and bared by rolled-up shirtsleeves, the hairs on them red-gold in the light, more than was appropriate.

"Somehow I knew there had been a masked ball gone wrong," she said, dragging her eyes back up to his face, "but I've never heard the bit about the party being thrown by a magician."

"Give the man his due, Mary…" Richard looked up at her as he lay his butter knife aside, dimples flickering with the mocking twist of his mouth around the edge of his Scotch and soda glass. "Walter Scott didn't call him the Great Wizard of the North for nothing."

Mary had made the mistake of choosing that moment to sip her cocktail, and gave an unladylike snort. "All the more embarrassing for the ROH. He sounds like a character from an L Frank Baum novel."

He reached around her to draw a knife from the block by the sink, and her gaze found its way to his forearm again; she watched the tendons flex as he pressed the blade through a block of cheddar, cutting thin, precise slices:

"This wizard's personal life was hardly suitable for children's literature," Richard went on. "He fathered two bast-illegitimate sons with members of his troupe."

Smiling into her glass at his self-edit, Mary said, "_Mm_, that does sound rather more like content for one of your papers."

"In fact Mr Anderson had _five_ children." Richard arranged the cheese on the slices of bread in a methodical way that suggested this was not a unique occurrence. "Another son and two daughters with his wife." He brushed against Mary as he stepped around her to return the cheddar block to the icebox, and again when he came back to the counter with a jar of pickle chutney. He met her eye at her as he twisted the jar lid. "They all followed in his magical footsteps."

"That must have been salve for his pride after the humiliation of burning down the Royal Opera."

"Yes, I'm sure it must." The jar opened with a _pop_, and Richard turned to spread the pickle over the bread. The lines of his face tugged downward in a frown, and he added in a low tone, "Until he and his eldest son became bitter rivals."

Though he was clearly troubled by the family dynamics of the story, Mary couldn't hide her own amusement. "Magician rivalry. My. And I thought _my _family were given to dramatics."

With practiced strokes of the knife, Richard cut the sandwiches into neat triangles, trimmed off the crusts, then offered her a plate. He lifted his chin, but the playful gleam returned to his eye, and when he spoke the tight quality left his voice. "I hope you appreciate the restraint I'm demonstrating in not remarking on that."

The tips of their fingers touched beneath the plate as Mary took hold of it. "As much as I hope you appreciate mine in not commenting on you deigning to make me a sandwich."

Glass in one hand and plate in the other, Richard shouldered through the swinging door to the dining room and held it open with his foot for her to pass through.

"If I'd known we were to end up back here for supper," he said, "I would have had cook do up something a little less…"

"Working class?"

"I was going to say bachelor fare," he said with a scowl that gave way almost immediately to a grin.

He placed Scotch and sandwich at the top of a table with u-shaped pedestal legs long enough to seat a dozen comfortably, drew out the chair to the right, upholstered in green leather edged with nail heads, and seated her. As he pushed her chair in, his thumbs stroked her arms unnecessarily, so warm in contrast to the cool metallic beading at the edges of her sleeve. Mary looked up to see him still smiling at her as he lingered, expectant of the response which she had been too distracted by his touch to think of. She glanced away, the room seeming to spin slightly, and as Richard took his seat she took a drink.

"I'm surprised you don't plan for any eventuality," she said.

Surely that was the point of a penthouse flat above his office-partially, anyway? A discreet place to bring women after nights out on the town? She ought to be flattered, she supposed, that he had not simply assumed she would approve of such a scheme. Had she agreed to one, though, in coming here?

"There's rhubarb and custard in the icebox," Richard replied, tucking into his sandwich, "though that was more a plan for the eventuality of my requiring a late-night snack. Actually there was a salad I never got around to at luncheon-watercress, tomato, and potato."

He started to get up, but Mary covered his hand on the glossy surface of the table which reflected the modern painting that covered most of the wall at the end of the wood-panelled room. "This is fine, really. I was only teasing."

As though to prove it she took a bite of her sandwich; there was no denying that the contrasting flavours and textures of cheese and pickle, however simple, combined to make a delicious supper. And, somehow, a perfectly suitable choice for a man of contrasts like Richard, who made his own sandwiches and then ate them in a dining room furnished with such luxuries as a pair of two-foot high silver table lamps with alabaster and glass-beaded canopies, and a bronze tiger which prowled the amboyna burl parquet sideboard in front of a painting in a geometric leaf motif, like Shere Khan in Kipling's jungle stories.

Easing back into his chair, Richard smiled softly down at the hand which Mary had forgotten still clasped his. She didn't like to pull away, not when he looked like that, but thankfully he spared her the awkwardness, sliding his long fingers out from beneath hers to pick up his sandwich.

"As you're in such a magnanimous mood," he said, "I'll make the perhaps unwise confession that there are some aspects of the privileged life I've not grown entirely accustomed to."

"Such as?"

"How seldom one can be truly alone. There ought to be a cook in the kitchen now, or a butler presiding in the corner listening in on every word we say." Richard contemplated her over his glass. "Though I suppose the notion of total privacy would never occur to you."

_It still seems rather odd to be found in your bed_, Matthew's husky morning voice drawled through her mind. She took a drink.

For a moment they sat silent, Mary watching Richard eat. In the privacy of his own home his manners left nothing to be desired, though as he finished off his sandwich he popped the end of his thumb between his lips to lick off a blob of pickle. She ought to have found _that _ill-bred, but instead of her nose crinkling in disgust, her stomach gave a little twist as she imagined the purse of his lips and the flick of his tongue and the heat of his mouth on her own.

The scrape of chair legs against the floor-perhaps for the best-interrupted this daydream and Richard stood and announced he'd like another sandwich. He offered her one, too, but she asked only for another drink.

"Another White Lady coming right up," he said with a grin, and Mary thought again as she watched how easily he moved to the sideboard and found the necessary ingredients, glancing at her over his shoulder to acknowledge her as they chatted while he mixed the drinks, how comfortable he was here, as much in his element as in the office downstairs. Did he do this often with women? With that jazz singer, Josephine What's-her-name?

Mary carried their drinks to the living room while Richard retreated to the kitchen to make his sandwich. The grey-haired tabby who hissed at her when she and Richard first entered the flat greeted her again in a similar manner from the back of one of the sage green club chairs.

"Careful, William," she said; Richard had told her the cat was named for William Randoph Hearst, the American publisher. "Keep up that sort of behaviour, and all Sir Richard's visitors will know you for the common alley cat you really are."

As she placed Richard's drink on the side table nestled between two chairs, she bent to examine a photograph in a simple silver frame. Three towheaded boys in knee breeches and knitted jumpers who looked remarkably alike-and remarkably like Richard-except for their varying sizes, grinned at her from behind the glass. Mark she of course recognised, though he was missing his front teeth and his cheeks were plumper, the picture taken a few years ago; she assumed the middle boy must be George Jr and the youngest…what was his name? Andy. The baby niece-Joanne? No, Jeannie-was not pictured at all.

Mary moved about the living room, taking advantage of Richard's absence to look at the other family portraits and get a glimpse into his mysterious personal life. Most were displayed on a bookcase built into the corner of the honeyed oak panelled wall, preserving the uncluttered minimalism of the décor. A photograph of two elderly people she assumed were his parents revealed that Richard mostly favoured his late mother, who appeared formidable enough to rival Granny, though Mr Carlisle gave off an air of charm even in shadowy black and white, dapper with a pencil moustache. Richard's brother grinned proudly from a few, including one with his bride, a pretty but shy looking woman who, guessing from the fashion of her admittedly lower-class gown, couldn't be much older than Mary-and having borne four children! She found the baby at last, in a picture with the entire Carlisle clan at the Christening.

What struck her about that one, apart from how Richard rather stuck out against the humble Sunday best of his father and brother in his morning coat and top hat, was how free they all were with their smiles in contrast her own family's awkward restraint in the pictures from George and Sybbie's baptisms. Granted, they had been in mourning, but even in the best of times her family never looked so unreservedly happy as this. _That's not who we are_…But Richard's dimples were as deep in his cheeks as George's as he slung an affectionate arm around his younger brother's shoulder.

She turned from the bookcase and took in the rest of the furnishings. As in the dining room a single painting dominated one wall, unframed but set into an alcove framed with moulding carved in strong vertical lines, a modern abstract design done in earth tones. A sofa stood beneath it, upholstered to match the chairs, with jellyroll cushions serving as low arms and no back so as not to obstruct the artwork. On the adjoining wall stood a cabinet which held a phonograph and, curious to know what sort of music Richard enjoyed in private, Mary went to it; passing the chair where the cat perched, she reached out discreetly to stroke his grey striped coat, but he was wary and swatted her hand away. The curling tip of his tail quivered as it draped over the chair, and she returned his unblinking, dilated stare as she sipped her cocktail.

"You know, your suspicion reminds me of Richard's brother." She smirked as the absurd thought occurred that Richard might have confided to his cat about their torrid past.

"Is William warming to you?" his voice sounded suddenly behind her.

Mary steadied herself with a drink before she looked back to see the kitchen door swinging silently on its hinges behind him as he stepped through carrying a plate and two trifle bowls of the aforementioned custard.

"Do cats ever warm to anyone?"

Richard shrugged. "He likes me."

He placed the dishes on the table with his drink, then stood beside Mary, sliding his hands over her hips and turning her toward him. Instinctively she tilted her face up toward his as he leaned in as though to kiss her, but he paused, grinning down into her eyes.

"They tend to be little cold and careful at first, but once they're assured of being in charge, they can be quite affectionate. I find."

He angled his head to close the gap between them, and despite puzzling over the subtext uttered in his low teasing tones, Mary allowed him to kiss her, and returned it-though only briefly before she drew back, eyebrow arched.

"That's how it is, then? William the Cat presides as sovereign ruler over your flat?"

"He left me little choice but to agree to this arrangement after he insisted on living here."

With a gentle nudge at the small of Mary's back, Richard indicated she sit in the chair to his left, facing the painting; he sidled around the front of the other chair with the cat and lowered himself into it, shooting William a sideways glance as it descended on wary paws along the curving arm to settle there before Richard could rest his elbow on it. The green eyes stared back at him through slits, and in the end it was Richard who sighed in resignation and muttered that he was going to eat and did not require the armrest anyway.

Around bites of sandwich he spun a yarn of how William came from the back alleys of Fleet Street to live in the penthouse above the _Capital Herald_ offices, though Mary only half-heard as she contemplated how his actions revealed that Richard apparently did have it in him to be conciliatory after all; that he could share his space and acquiesce to someone else's demands. Even if a cat was only a small example, it was nevertheless a start.

Then again, she thought, sipping her drink, this shouldn't be so awfully surprising. What was Haxby if not an enormous failed attempt at mollifying her? He'd put her own preferences for living arrangements above her own, this flat made abundantly clear.

"…until he one day he decided he'd killed enough mice for the warehouse lads," the rumble of Richard's voice drew her back to awareness, "and began to leave them on the chief press operator's desk, instead."

Mary wrinkled her nose. "Charming."

"McClintock wasn't so much disgusted as insulted that William didn't think he was capable of catching his own mice."

"Do you feel that way when William leaves you little presents?"

"He doesn't, so he must respect my ability to fend for myself." Richard set aside his empty sandwich plate and started on his custard, and Mary followed suit.

"Have you considered he might be plotting to starve you out so he can seize the flat for himself once and for all?"

"What a diabolical mind you have, Lady Mary," said Richard-and his mouth curved in an expression that made this seem much more complimentary than it ought to have.

"The most likely scenario, of course, is that unlike you, William doesn't care to revisit his roots. Why go to the trouble of catching mice and dragging them up four flights of fire escapes when there are servants' hands to feed you? Even for privacy's sake?"

"He takes the lifts, actually."

Mary nearly choked on her custard as she laughed, and had to clear her throat with a drink. "You must be joking."

"I swear," Richard said, spoon clinking against the glass dish as he scooped out the last of his custard. "That really was how William and I became acquainted. I stepped into the lift and he leapt in as the doors shut, rode up here, and claimed this chair."

"I'd never doubt _your_ word. Although I'm a little disappointed you didn't find him sat behind your desk conducting a board meeting."

"Oh, Miss Fields caught him there-once. But she's highly allergic and wouldn't stand for an office cat."

"How fortunate you've a formidable secretary to protect your empire from a coup." She dabbed the moisture from corners of her eyes; how good it felt to cry with amusement, for once. "You _would _have a self-made cat who's bold and modern enough to make his social climb via lift instead of the stairs."

Richard chuckled, but glanced away, watching his fingers stroke the scruff of William's neck. "If only such a quick and easy path had been available for mine."

For a moment Mary considered him as she finished her custard, then she asked, "How long since William made his rise?"

"Six years? Seven?"

So William padded on little cat feet into Richard's life before she did. "I'm surprised you managed to keep a cat secret from me. Even more than the lat."

"The secret cat in the secret flat…Sounds like something you've been reading to George. But why?" he asked, angling his body in his chair as he met her eye again. "Don't I strike you as the animal-loving type? I did, after all, ride an elephant at the zoo."

The furrow between his pale golden eyebrows said he expected her to wax philosophical about his personality, but Mary had no such deep notions. "Because I never saw a trace of cat hair on your suits."

Briefly the lines on his forehead deepened, but a drink washed the disappointed look away, and he smiled at her, as he scuffed his thumb over the edge of his glass, ceding to her game. "A valet's not worth his salary if he can't clean a suit to pass muster with an earl's daughter."

He certainly did that tonight, Mary thought, eying him in his shirtsleeves and waistcoat; while he was in the kitchen he'd loosened his tie, and she could see the curve of his throat between the open wings of his collar. Her face warmed as he caught her scrutinizing him-or was it the alcohol?-and she raised an eyebrow at him.

"Your valet isn't here now, so perhaps you'd better get up from that chair while you still can."

"What would I do once standing?"

"Well…" She swallowed the last of her White Lady. "I believe you said you'd take me dancing if I attended the opera with you."

"I see how it is-you only humoured me by sitting through _Barber_ because of the lure of more appealing entertainment."

The twinkle in his eyes belied the sulky tone he affected. He drained his Scotch, and though Mary knew he was watching her she couldn't stop her gaze drifting down to follow the roll of his throat as he swallowed. He set his empty glass on the table and stood, William leaping off the chair arm, startled by the sudden movement , and extended his hand to Mary.

"I promised you supper, too," he said, and she followed the nod of his chin to the empty sandwich plate. "Oh dear. After cheese and pickle, I suppose I ought to lower my expectations."

But she placed her hand in his, and his long fingers closed around it, drawing her effortlessly to her feet. He kept hold of her hand as he guided her to the end of the room with the phonograph and put the needle on the record. Instantly, the living room was filled with the jaunty sounds of muted jazz horns and winds playing a faintly eastern sounding melody. _Well I'm the Sheik of Araby_, a baritone crooned as Richard led her in a foxtrot. _Your love belongs to me…_

"On second thought," she said, stumbling a little over the steps on the cushiony beige plush carpet, "perhaps you're the one who ought to set the bar a little lower."

"Would you be more comfortable with a Strauss waltz?"

After her two cocktails Mary wasn't sure it was the particular dance that was the problem; the way Richard's arm tightened about her, the flat of his palm pressing firmly against her back, holding her more securely against him, made her suspect he knew that was not the case.

"Before today, I would have asked if you actually own something so sentimental as a Strauss record, but now I know you enjoy opera…"

"Alas, the ballroom's back at Haxby."

_The stars that shine above_

_Will light our way to love_

_You rule this world with me_

_I'm the Sheik of Araby_

High up as they were above the rooftops of Fleet Street's office buildings, too much emanated light from the city and too much smoke chuffed from the warehouse chimneys to make out any stars from Richard's floor-to-ceiling windows. Instead, electric light beamed down from a bronze chandelier whose linear arms terminated in boxy alabaster shades. She thought of the gilt monstrosity suspended in the middle of the gallery in Haxby, with its dozens of fluted globes and overly curling branches. Would she ever have seen him as clearly in that light as saw him here, tonight?

And what she saw, her mind drifted lazily, unable to form any more coherent thoughts, she liked. So very very much. He was charming and handsome, if informal and improper in his rolled-up shirtsleeves, but she preferred this Richard who was comfortable enough in his own space, at ease enough with her, to relax, the only lines on his sharp-featured face the creases that formed with his smile. Even his pomade had relented its grip on his fair thinning hair. Speaking of grip, while he kept a firm hold on her waist, her hand, technically leading her in their improvised dance, he slightly less impaired than she by the liquor, she sensed that he was placing himself entirely under her control. Lady Mary Crawley and William the Cat, in charge of Sir Richard Carlisle.

"This suits you much better," she said.

_Well I'm the sheik of Araby_

_Your love belongs to me…_

The day's growth of stubble at his chin prickled lightly against her temple, and she felt the roll of his hips and an unmistakable hardness against hers as he moved with the sensual slide of the music. She ought to have been embarrassed by his arousal, but a companion urge stirred inside her at the husky tone of his voice.

"And how does it suit you?"

Much as he did. The flat was rich and masculine as the man who owned it, and unlike any other place she might have been at this hour of the night. There were no painful reminders to gnaw at her thoughts; in fact she did not have to think at all. She could enjoy herself, as she had enjoyed herself at the zoo and the Queen's Club and the opera, and most of all she could simply _be_, as he was. On a whim, she stopped dancing, keeping hold of his arm for balance as she bent to unbuckle her t-straps, kicking the pumps aside, and let her pinched, aching feet sink luxuriously into the carpet. Richard stepped out of his shoes, too, and they resumed their dance in stocking feet, his eyes searching hers for the answer to his question.

"Well…" She clung harder to his shoulder, her lips just skimming the place where his ear met the sharp angle of his jaw. "I'm in no rush to leave."

It was something of an irony considering the tempo of the song and the dance they were doing to it-not to mention the rapid pulse of Mary's heart behind her ribcage as Richard drew their clasped hands against his chest, the back of his hand cupped in the valley between her breasts. The thought came into her head that perhaps things were progressing rather too quickly, only to flit away, or float away, the gin she'd drunk giving her the sensation that everything had in fact slowed down, from the rate at which the living room revolved around her, to the rotation of the earth on its axis. He bent his head, scruff rasping over her cheekbone, then tilted to meet her mouth as she as she turned her face in towards him, and they kissed, at first a supple glide of his lips against hers, like the movements of the dance, but her own met him, hard, and he responded in kind.

_The sun that shines above_

_Will light our way to love_

_You rule this world with me _

_I'm the Sheik of Araby_…

Holding her yet tighter around the waist, Richard broke the kiss briefly as he sank down upon the low sofa behind them, only for her to claim his mouth with increased fervour when he drew her into his lap. She let go of his hand to clasp both of hers behind his neck, and his free one curved over her breast. When one of her hands flew down to cover it he started to withdraw, thinking she found this advance too bold, but she held fast, moving it so that the tips of his fingers found the centre slit in the blousy _lamé_ overlay of her bodice. His hum of approval tickled her lips as he followed her lead and his palm warmed her skin through her gown's thin chiffon slip, while the other hand left the small of her back to push the hem of her dress up over her knee. She shivered against him as the callused pads of his fingers skimmed along the ticklish inside of her knee and up higher along her thigh.

"Sorry," Richard murmured, his lips leaving hers to trail soft kisses along her cheekbone and nibble at her ear.

"Don't apologise," came her breathless reply.

Months had passed-long months-since she'd felt the intimacy and comfort of a man's touch, and the only thing she thought she was not strong and sharp enough to bear in this moment was if he should stop-which Richard did not do, his hands not withdrawing from her skirt or her bodice. His thumb found her nipple and teased it to a point even through the layers of slip and chemise and corselet, and his hand slid higher up her thigh, touching the lace trim of her knickers.

And it wasn't enough, not enough to make her forget how long it had been, or why it had been so long.

With his face burrowed in the hollow of her collar bones and his hand up her dress, she eased backward off his lap, answering the questioning lift of his head by hooking her fingers through the sleeves of his waistcoat and pulling him down toward her. He didn't hesitate to do her bidding, stretching out alongside her on the sofa, his back to the living room, almost a shelter as she lay beside the wall. Her head rested on a cushion but he slid an arm beneath her neck as well, fisting the hair at her nape as he supported himself on his elbow and kissed her more deeply than before, and hooked one leg over hers.

Their movement had twisted her dress and hiked the hem up around her hips, and Richard's hand crept higher, too, teasing her through her knickers. Mary was almost ashamed at how readily her body responded to so slight a touch, constricting her lungs but not managing to completely stifle a muffled moan against his lips as her hips arched up into the heel of his hand, but he chuckled low, pleased. And that made her buckle inside, as well.

"Smug," she murmured, but two could play at that game. She slipped her arms around his waist, pulling his hips snugly against hers so that the next rock of her hips pressed against his arousal.

In the bright light of the sconces which hung at either end of the sofa, she saw the sheen of his pale golden lashes when his eyelids fluttered was a flash of white as his teeth nipped out to bite down on his lower lip, but unlike her he made no attempt at stifling his reaction. He groaned-and when his eyes opened again, slowly, her heart missed a beat at how rich the blue of them was, the crisscrossed lines at the corners deepening as he gazed down at hers. His desire was evident-and then he uttered her name, the rasp of his voice caressing the syllables, and she remembered how he had once told her he loved her.

Before she could think what she was doing, her hands at the small of his back made a bold move, slipping beneath his waistcoat to undo the clasps of his braces. The next moments were something of a blur of trousers being unfastened and underpants and knickers drawn down or pushed out of the way, of positioning their bodies on the sofa, which was only just long enough for them, and then the joining.

Mary gasped when he pushed into her, fingers digging into his arms, crumpling the sleeves of his white shirt. It didn't hurt, precisely, not like the first time, but it wasn't entirely comfortable, either, though whether because her body had changed or because her lover had, she wasn't altogether certain. Richard seemed to understand, kissing her tenderly; though she appreciated his attempt to proceed without haste, she wrapped her legs around him, focusing on the tightly coiled ropes of muscles at the backs of his thighs, and pulled him fully in. She did not immediately urge him to move, however, but closed her eyes and rested beneath the his weight, remembering as if from a long-ago dream how reassuring a man's body could be in the dark.

If only they'd taken the time to fully undress, she thought, running her fingers over his back and shoulders, taking stock of the smooth planes and sharp angles and wishing she could feel them through bare skin, his and hers…Then he be withdrew, so slowly, and she arched up to meet him as he returned, him and she gave herself over to physical sensations of his hands beneath her underclothes, his kisses on her mouth and face and neck and shoulders, riding her pleasure again and again until they reached its peak…

"Mary…Look at me?"

At his request, she tore the heavy lids of her eyes open to meet his intent gaze. As if by mutual assent they came over the precipice, crying out together, as much in agreement as ever they had been.

It was like releasing a breath she'd held too long, she thought, her body going limp beneath his weight, limbs uncurling from around him to fall on the soft sinking sofa cushions. Richard, however, remained buried in her, curled around her, arms embracing, murmuring her name against her skin as he kissed her cheek, her shoulder, seeking her gaze in between, searching her eyes for the answer to some unspoken question-as if in coming undone, his need of her increased. When she opened her palms against his chest, pushing softly against the firm muscles, he at once slipped out from her.

"Not in a rush to go now, are you?" he asked, his voice husky, with the rattle of a laugh in his throat-and an uncertain look in his eye.

Mary swept an errant lock of hair back from his forehead and kissed him. "Only to the bedroom."


	15. In Broad Daylight

_**A/N: My apologies to anyone who was caught off-guard by the rating change last week! I did not realize that this fic had been misrated as K+ on the site while it was listed as M on other archives. The rating has been changed now, and just a heads up that there is more adult content in this chapter. Not that most of you seemed to mind. ;) Thanks so much for your continued support of the story-and this is true most of all for my beta, malintzin.**_

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**15. In Broad Daylight**

Mary never would have pictured Richard sleeping on his stomach, but apparently he did. At least he did now, only pushing off of her to collapse again, spent, on the mattress beside her, one arm slung across her waist as she lay on her back. Almost at once his breathing deepened and evened as if in slumber, though his fingers did not slacken their grip on her hip. While she'd felt drowsy beneath his warm weight after they finished making love for the second time, her eyes snapped wide open, nipples standing erect with goose bumps beneath the sheet as she realised that all her earlier reluctance to go home, and the reassurances that she wanted to stay with him, meant she had tacitly agreed to stay the night at his flat.

Which meant that in the morning she would have to face Matthew's mother with this truth.

"Richard," Mary half-whispered.

He groaned into the pillows; he must be awake after all-partially.

"I haven't any clothes."

It wasn't at all what she meant to say, but it was all she could manage, perhaps due to the distraction of his arm lying heavily on her stomach, which fluttered like a debutante's, and the contrast of how lightly his callused fingertips stroked the hollow of her hipbone.

"_Hmm_?" Richard lifted his head. In the light of the sconces at the far end of his long narrow bedroom, which was reflected in the faint sheen of the silvery-grey patterned wallpaper, she saw his pupils contract as he blinked; the dimple deepened as the corner of his mouth pulled upward in the start of a smile. He ran his fingers over her ribs, sliding them into the notches between, and up to her breast. "So you haven't."

As he spoke he leaned over her, so that his stubble rasped and his breath whispered against her skin, and she shivered. Her stomach hitched inward as his lips closed around the already hardened nipple of her other breast, teasing it with his tongue until she nearly couldn't stand it.

"Richard…" came her feeble protest, and she undermined her attempt at pushing him away by sliding her hands over his muscular shoulders to rake along the edges of the blades.

He heeded her anyway, his mouth leaving her breast and trailing kisses to her shoulderas he settled once more against the pillows. This time he lay on his side, slipping one arm beneath Mary to draw her against him.

"You can borrow a pair of pyjamas if you like," he murmured into her hair. "In the tallboy…"

Soon he fell asleep again, and though Mary thought she was too alert, the warmth of his breath against her neck, the plodding rhythm of his heart at her back, even the brush of his flaccid penisagainst her bottom, relaxed her. How could anything go wrong when it felt right to be here in this bed, with him? It could, and probably would, in a multitude of ways, but it hurt to think of them. A headache pulled at the backs of her eyes, so she closed them.

When she opened them again, the bedroom was light-not from the sconces, but daylight which filtered in through the sheer white curtains between long panels of raisin-coloured velvet. To her initial dismay, Mary discovered she lay alone in the expansive bed, but muted clanking sounds from beyond the door, which stood just ajar, assuaged the disappointment: Richard might be pottering in the kitchen again, and she could do with tea, or even coffee; sleep had not cured her headache.

She threw back the duvet, dark like the draperies with a white diamond pattern to which she'd given little notice when they fell into bed previous night, and the startlingly cool air that drifted against her skin from the raised window reminded her that she was naked. Not only naked, but had nothing to dress in but the previous night's mauve evening dress. She burrowed back beneath the bedclothes**,** contemplating Richard's offer to lend her pyjamas**.** In the end she decided that her movements and the glare of the lights against the silvery-grey wallpaper and various reflective surfaces of the furnishings had made her temples throb, so she stayed put, closing her eyes as she massaged her forehead between her thumb and middle fingers.

She didn't intend to doze off again, but must have done, jerking with a slight shift in the mattress.

"Sorry," said Richard, whose weight at the edge of the bed had awakened her. He wore a dressing gown of burnt orange silk which picked up the reddish hues in his unshaven stubble and in the chest hair suggested by the loosely drawn-together v of his lapels-for he wore no pyjamas underneath-and contrasted the vivid blue of his eyes as the corners crinkled with amusement. "It's earlier than you're accustomed to waking, but I've a nine o'clock meeting."

The crisp white linens rustled as Mary turned her head on the pillow to look at the silver clock that stood on the shelf built into the honeyed maple headboard which spanned most of the wall. A quarter to six.

She looked up at him again, an eyebrow raised. "How much time do you require to dress for work?"

There were more questions which she didn't voice aloud: Would his valet come to assist with his morning toilet? Shave him? Or did Richard do for himself in this flat where he made his own sandwiches?

A slight smile formed on her lips as she puzzled over his personal habits, only to fade with the memories that pushed to the front of her mind, of mornings in the early days of marriage to Matthew, in their villa in the south of France, or in the green-painted bedroom at Downton, when the revelation of these private details, though dreadfully mundane, had been as delightful and deeply satisfying as the solution to a Sherlock Holmes mystery. _Early days. _Her heart gave a little a marriage of just eighteen months, wasn't it all early days?

"I do like a little time in the office before meetings," Richard's wry voice thankfully brought that sad train of thought to a halt. Both their gazes flickered downward, to his fingers tracing a circle along the edge of her knee where it formed a peak beneath the sheet. He added, in a lower tone, "And I imagine you'll want to get home before you're missed."

Mary nodded. "I walk early, some days…"

Lots of days, if she were completely honest. So did Isobel -if the baby was up she took him out, too, and sometimes they met coming around the square and they tried not to acknowledge what had drawn them from their beds.

"I'm afraid that explanation won't be terribly convincing if I'm dressed in my opera clothes."

"You won't be."

Richard's hand skimmed from her knee upward over her thigh, tracing the outline of her torso through the duvet until it curled around her bare shoulder, his thumb scuffing absently over her exposed collarbone. Her skin contrasted starkly with the earthy hue of the coverlet.

"A borrowed pair of your pyjamas will hardly be a less incriminating alternative," she said and pushed into a sitting position, clutching the sheet to her bosom.

He laughed quietly at that, looking as if he'd imagined her strolling around Hanover Square thus, but then his hand fell from her shoulder and he drew himself erect, tugging at the sash of his dressing gown as he regarded her with eyebrows and chin raised.

"In fact," he said, "Miss Fields is on her way to Grantham House now, to get you a day dress. With _strict _instructions for your maid to be discreet about it."

This was the Richard she knew well-deep-voiced and authoritative, brisk and businesslike, no detail escaping his attention. As if this was the sort of cover-up-in the most literal sense-he was well practiced at, with other women. And yet his eyes -and his hand, for it had returned to her knee-rested so gently upon her. Fond. Affectionate. _In love_.

She swung her gaze past him, to the foot of the bed where a burl wood tray, lacquered to a high gloss, rested. A cup of coffee. A plate of toast with a mound of butter and a pot of marmalade. A glass of water and, she noticed as Richard took her glance as a cue to move it closer to her, two aspirin tablets.

"I wasn't sure how accustomed you are to gin." Richard squeezed the curling ends of his hair that brushed the collar of his dressing gown.

"Cocktails have at last made their way to Yorkshire, you know," she replied, but the dry sarcasm stuck in her throat.

All of this was not merely Richard looking after her, but giving her a way out.

Even now.

"You do think of everything, don't you?"

It was the subtlest change, the slightest flicker of his facial muscles, but his smile vanished and his eyes hardened, the old defensiveness flickering across his face. His hand left her knee , but before he could sit back from her, Mary caught his belt and held him in place. She let go of the sheet and it pooled around her waist, baring her breasts as she traced his hairline and pushed an errant lock of hair back from his forehead. She leaned in and kissed him softly on the lips, hoping to convey that she meant it as a compliment this time, and was grateful.

In response, Richard wrapped one arm around her waist, pulling her against him amid the tangle of sheets; the other cupped the back of her head, long fingers raking into her bobbed hair, curling it around them, as he pressed his mouth to hers with such an unrestrained passion that she caught her breath and opened without hesitation to the sweep of his tongue. He tasted faintly of strong black coffee, and again she sensed need in the way he held her, kissed her…Yet when she clutched the sleeves of his dressing gown in her fists and tugged it off his shoulders until the tips of her nipples pressed against his bare chest and she felt the pound of his heart against the pulse in her temples, he abruptly broke the kiss. Still Mary clung to him, pressing her forehead against his, and he feathered kisses along the bridge of her nose and her brow.

"Isobel will find out about us eventually," she said raggedly between breaths, "but getting caught sneaking home isn't the ideal circumstance."

The criss-crossed lines at the corners of Richard's eyes deepened with his smile. "_Us,_" he murmured low, and he disentangled his fingers from her hair to take her hand instead, lacing their fingers together. She moved to kiss his lips again, and he tilted his head to meet her gently, as soft as the pillows he eased her back against with his firm arm behind her and his weight above.

Last night had been frantic, an urgency on Mary's part to surrender to physical sensation and the pull of alcohol into the sweet oblivion where she knew pleasure and forgot the plaguing pain. Now again she tugged at his dressing gown to remove it completely, then grasped his hips to draw them into alignment with hers before she could think and ruin everything. Richard resisted her, catching her hand and drawing it over her head, pressing it into the pillow.

"Why do you think I allowed so much time before I need to be in the office?"

He nuzzled at her ear, then worked his way downward, trailing light kisses down her neck and clavicles and the rise of her breasts, determined to make love to her in the morning light. Mary let out a breath of relief as the languorous attention he focused on her rendered coherent thought nigh impossible. His touch rekindled her desire, as did her own exploration of the hard edges and angles of his body which she had felt but not seen clearly in the night.

That he was capable of such tenderness came as something of a contrast to the defined planes of his chest, the ripple of back muscles and the jut of his shoulder blades and spine beneath his pale skin, which seemed to record as boldly as typeset the hard climb he'd made from selling newspapers on the streets of Morningside to the top floor of the _Capital Herald _building. A tough world formed him, and no one in it had coddled him.

Mary had grown lean, too, these last months. Though she harboured no delusions about her life being anything like Richard's, she wanted to believe she knew something about struggle, that she had endured and been made stronger by it rather than been broken to bits. As he positioned himself over her, she watched how her hipbones slotted just between his; when they at last joined, he fitted her, filled her. _I think we'd do well together. We could make a good team. _Probably not what he meant by that, or by _strong and sharp_, but she couldn't help but think it as her fingernails pressed half-moons into the quivering lines of his biceps beneath his pale skin before they buckled with their climax.

As unhurried as he had been performing the act of love, Richard did not hasten to leave her afterward, nor did Mary encourage him to do so. Some moments passed as he lingered in the cradle of her thighs, she in his arms' embrace, ending much as they began, with soft kisses and his fingers combing through her hair.

But end it must, and did, when he pressed one final kiss to her lips and asked as he sat back from her, searching through the unkempt sheets and duvet for his dressing gown, "How was that for a headache remedy?"

"A lot more exciting than taking an aspirin," Mary replied, but was unable to return Richard's grin as he slipped his arms into the sleeves of his dressing gown and tugged it up over his shoulders. "Alas not as effective."

Wincing, she pushed upright in bed, and Richard adjusted the pillows behind her against the headboard.

"I'll get you a fresh cup of coffee." He brushed his lips to her forehead, cleared the mug from the tray, and padded from the bedroom.

Mary washed the tablets down with a glass of water and, waiting for the medication to take effect, became suddenly self-conscious about her state of undress. Clutching the sheet around her, she swung her legs over the edge of the low bed, pausing to wriggle her toes in the thick cream and brown-striped rug, and leant to open the top drawer of the tall chest beside the bed. She found several pairs of pyjamas-all silk-and selected a pair of sapphire blue ones, recalling that Richard once complimented her on a blouse of hers in that colour, which she'd made a point of not wearing around him again after that, even though the next weekend he'd come bearing a pendant and earring set to match it.

As she pulled the pyjamas from the bottom of the pile, a dull rattle against the wood suggested the drawer held other contents than sleeping clothes. For a moment she hesitated, hand hovering over the open drawer, then she glanced over her shoulder toward the partly open door. William the **c**at stared at her from the ivory armchair at the foot of the bed. Judging her.

She slipped her arms into the too-long sleeves of the pyjama top, staring back into the unblinking feline gaze as she did up the buttons. Cats always looked judgmental, she told herself, ignoring the prick of her own conscience about snooping; and if any creature understood the irresistibility of piqued curiosity, it would be a cat. Of course there was that rather dire adage on that subject, but the thought slipped as easily from Mary's mind as the burgundy, hunter green, pinstriped**,** and even paisley silk slid through her fingers as she delved into the drawer again. When they closed around a small velvet cube which could only be a jewellery case, she forgot about William's watchful gaze entirely.

_What_ jewel it contained she was fairly certain of, but she felt compelled to open the box anyway to confirm her suspicion. The spring hinge of the lid opened with a pop that echoed in the high-ceilinged room and, remembering where she was, she glanced backward again. William opened his mouth as though to meow at her, but no sound emitted from the bared teeth. Then, he gracefully leapt down from the chair and slunk through the door.

Alone, Mary looked down at the pearl solitaire that had graced her fourth finger for more than a year.

"Sorry I took so long," Richard's voice startled her. "Miss Fields brought your..."

She turned to see him holding her valise in one hand, her coffee in the other, but his attention was held by what was in _her _hands. Which felt as though they'd been caught in the biscuit barrel. Slowly, cognizant of how foolish she must look dressed only an ill-fitting man's pyjama shirt which scarcely covered the tops of her thighs, her hair dishevelled from sleep and sex, Mary stood and faced him, making no attempt to hide what she clutched. Unlike Aunt Rosamund, she _did _always admit when she was in the wrong, and apologise. Though the presence of William, whose mouth seemed to smirk as he caressed Richard's calf with the curling end of his tail-had he been spying for his master?-heightened the indignity of the situation.

"I oughtn't to have snooped."

"No matter," Richard replied, lips tight around the syllables. He came further into the room and placed the valise on the chair and the coffee on the bed tray. "Technically that's yours."

Intimate as they had just been, Mary couldn't help but feel a twinge of sympathy for the humiliation, perhaps even the heartbreak, he'd felt when he opened the envelope containing the engagement ring she'd returned to him. But she'd made her apologies for that, and meant them.

"Those ground rules we laid…" She stepped forward on the carpet, sliding her hand along the smooth straight edge of the footboard as she rounded the bed to stand beside him. He did not look at her. "We agreed, no bitterness over the past. Or does that apply only to our Haxby business meetings?"

Richard's chest fell sharply beneath the silk lapels, and his jaw muscle flickered under the shadow of his stubble. When he lifted his gaze he still did not look directly at her, instead over her shoulder at the open bureau drawer, though the tautness left his voice when he rasped, "I'd forgotten I put it there."

"You don't open your pyjama drawer often, then?" Mary attempted levity, but her voice fell flat, and the quirk of Richard's lips did not truly count as a smile. "Why did you keep it?"

The dint in his cheek deepened as his eyes snapped to meet hers beneath an arched eyebrow, the look seeming to say, _I kept Haxby, too_.

He shoved his hands into the pockets of his dressing gown and shrugged his shoulders. "What does one do with returned engagement rings? Sell them? It seems bad luck to give a woman from a failed relationship, wouldn't you agree?"

Mary did, of course, though she didn't say so. "Superstition?" she said instead. "That doesn't sound like the Richard Carlisle I know."

He made no reply, and she considered what to say next, swirling the tip of her index finger over the smooth curve of the pearl. At length, she spoke:

"Perhaps pearls are unlucky in and of themselves. They represent tears, you know."

"Is that what you thought when I gave it to you? That our marriage would bring you grief? That we were doomed to fail?"

_We're cursed, you and I._

Lifting her chin, Mary answered, "Honestly I was relieved. I thought you'd inflict something gaudy on me."

Richard's eyes narrowed and he opened his mouth in retort. Before he could she went on:

"Now I've seen where you really live, a pearl makes perfect sense."

She looked around the bedroom and its furnishings which, like the living and dining rooms, were simple in design, the materials with which they were constructed providing the luxury.

"I thought it suited you," he said.

Her gaze snapped back to him, and the way he looked at her took her breath away. How many times he'd worn this expression when she was too busy noticing whether he wore the correct tweed?

"Beauty that required no embellishment," he elaborated. "My pearl of great price."

"I did cost you." So much more than whatever he'd paid for Haxby and its twelve thousand acres; that she didn't know an exact figure seemed all the worse. She looked down at the ring clutched in her hands, the pearl shimmering as she came as close to tears as she ever had over the whole ordeal. Or was that the glint of the diamond on her fourth finger?

Richard's hand closed around it, squeezing. "But we've got past all that, haven't we?"

"Of course we have." Blinking back the tears, Mary looked up at him. "That's who we are. Strong and sharp."

His grip tightened around her hand again, though not in a reassuring squeeze so much as a clutch. "Strong and sharp enough to tempt superstition?"

"Tempt…?"

"Would you wear it again? If I returned it to you?"

Mary's heart missed a beat and hung in her chest, suspended on the breath she could not release as she gawped up at him. Richard's other hand closed around her wrist, drawing her so close against him that the knot in the belt of his dressing gown pressed into her stomach. His forehead almost touched hers as he searched her eyes for an answer to the question she only now understood him to be asking.

"Richard…You want…?"

"I want to marry you."

He sounded so very like he had when he proposed to her on the Downton Station platform-certain and straight-forward-that for the fleetest of moments she thought she had somehow travelled five years back in time. She registered the difference in his wording, though: _I want you to marry me_. And he kissed her now, which he hadn't done then.

"You've seen the life we can build together," he said between brushes of his lips to hers. "You will be loved…"

_Loved…_ Her eyes closed at that, the sweet word she had not heard since...She kissed him back, but Richard broke away, and looked her in the eye.

"And George…Mary, I swear, I'll treat him as my own…"

bag Richard's secretary had brought for her on the ivory armchair and grabbed it, too.

He tilted his head to kiss her again, releasing her wrists to cup her face in his hands. But as the tips of his fingers skimmed her jaw she stepped back from him.

_George._

Matthew's son.

Her son, who she'd left at home with his grandmother while she slept with a man who was not his father.

The ring box slipped from her grasp. Mechanically, she stooped to pick it up; as she did she saw the

"I should dress," she said. "It's time I went home."

Richard said nothing as she thrust the ring at him and swept past to the en suite bathroom. She shut the door behind her and leaned back against it in the dark as her throat knotted. When she thought she could contain her tears no longer she flicked on the light, blinking at the glare of the lights off the white tiles which contrasted the room so starkly with the warmth of the rest of the flat, and turned the tap on full blast to drown out the sound of her sob. Not, however, before she jumped at the slam of a drawer, and Richard's curse.

Oh, what had she been thinking? She plunged her hands into the blast of cold water, cupping her hands to splash her face. That was the problem: she hadn't thought at all, but simply acted. In the mirror she watched the water run in rivulets down her forehead and into the creases that had etched themselves around her eyes and mouth these last months-oddly juxtaposed with the smattering of freckles revealed as the vestiges of last night's powder and rouge washed away, colouring the immaculate white marble sink. A child with her toys, as Papa once said. This friendship and romance she and Richard had built so carefully, toppled like a precarious tower of blocks because of youthful, selfish impatience.

When she emerged from the bathroom wearing a simple blouse and skirt and a cloche pulled down over her unkempt hair, as she might on any morning she woke before the maid could be reasonably expected to help her dress for a walk, Richard stood in front of his dressing table, having donned trousers and shirt, looking grim as he knotted his necktie. His eyes flickered briefly to hers in the mirror, then narrowed in a frown when he noticed the tie hung too long. As he undid the knot and tugged at the end to begin again, she started to speak.

"Richard, I'm-"

"It's I who should beg forgiveness-for being so bloody awful at proposals," he cut her off, the lines of his face pulling taut as the silk he was drawing about his collar with his stilted attempt at deflecting embarrassment with a joke. "I always believed there was something romantic about spontaneity, but it never seems to yield the desired results when the lady isn't ready."

With a final tug at the half-Windsor knot, apparently satisfied, Richard turned around, his eyes raking over her outfit as he picked up his waistcoat which was draped across the dressing table bench and put it on.

She watched him button his waistcoat, then turn once more toward the dressing table mirror. He opened a drawer and took out a tie pin, which he promptly dropped; it rattled on the marble table inlay as it rolled, and when he caught it, somehow pricked his index finger in the process of removing the back. He shook his hand and swore again.

That he apparently had not planned to propose to her any more than she had planned to spend the night with him made her feel slightly-but not completely-better about the whole situation.

"If we're comparing proposals, this one was certainly had more of the moon and the June than your last one," she said, and winced at her own awkward attempt at humour. "I didn't say no."

"I don't expect you to say anything," Richard said.

She appreciated it. "I want to, though. But I'm afraid all I can say is, not right now."

"I'll wait for you."

_Again_ hung unspoken between them as their eyes met in the mirror.

"I wish I didn't have to ask it of you."

They said little as he drove her back to Hanover Square in the Silver Ghost, parking around the corner so that in the likelihood that Isobel was awake by seven, she shouldn't see the car and suss Mary's ruse. He came around to her side to let her out, then slid across to the driver's seat.

"Well then," he said, "you'll phone me to say whether our scheme worked?"

Mary nodded, and he started to release the break, but she lunged forward, resting her hands on the edge of his door-for the top was down.

"Thank you, Richard. For all of it."

He gave her a small smile, but as he turned the car about in the square, she couldn't help but feel that instead of giving him her thanks for the wonderful night they had spent together, she had made him an apology for ruining everything.


End file.
